Plans for 800 new homes in Dublin suburb of Phibsborough

Plans for the development of Phibsborough – with up to 800 new homes, a new shopping centre, schools, and buildings up to 12 storeys in height – have been published by Dublin City Council.

The draft Phibsborough local area plan will govern the development of the largely Victorian suburb up to 2021, by which time it will have a Luas line and the DIT campus at Grangegorman will have 20,000 students.

The new planning document, which will shortly be available for public consultation, replaces the earlier Phibsborough and Mountjoy local area plan, published in 2008 but never implemented.

Changes in government plans for the area and the collapse of proposed private developments have made several provisions of the previous plan obsolete. This necessitated the preparation of new development criteria for the area which, despite being less than 2km from O’Connell Bridge at its centre, has several large plots of land ripe for development.

Mountjoy Prison

The 2008 plan was based on government policy to close Mountjoy Prison and relocate it to Thornton Hall, to build the new national paediatric hospital on the site of the Mater hospital, and construct Metro North. At the same time, Bohemians football club had plans to relocate from Dalymount Park and there were proposals for a new “village centre” on the combined site of Dalymount and the 1960s-built Phibsborough shopping centre.

The prison, which was in 2008 designated for a boutique hotel among other uses, is for the foreseeable future staying put; the children’s hospital is going to St James’s on the other side of the city; and the metro plans have been shelved.

The old precast concrete shopping centre with its eight-storey office block still offers potential for development, but not as part of a scheme involving Dalymount.

Under the new plan, Bohemians will stay, with the council planning to buy the ground and and retain it as a sports facility.

The redevelopment of the shopping centre, as a new retail and housing complex up to 12 storeys high, would go ahead separately under the plan.

Opened in 1968, the shopping centre was one of the first in Dublin. It is now dated and has a limited range of shops.

The National Asset Management Agency is expected to offer it for sale this year and its redevelopment with “higher- order” shops, apartments, and the removal of the existing surface car parking is a key objective, the council said.

The greatest potential for housing development is at the northern end of Phibsborough where it meets Glasnevin. The key residential site is the former Smurfit printworks on Botanic Road.

Phibsborough has the potential to accommodate up to 800 new homes and more than 250 of these could be built at the Smurfit site. The Department of Education wants part of the site to be reserved for a school.

Key development site

Back towards the village, the area west of Cross Guns Bridge on the Royal Canal was also identified as a key development site. It includes the former Shandon Mill bakery, CIÉ land and privately owned land around Des Kelly Carpets and Hedigan’s pub.

Under the plan, this site would be developed for a mix of uses including residential, commercial, cafes and restaurants, in addition to a water- based sporting and recreational amenity.

Eventually, a new railway station could be developed at the Cross Guns site, but this would be outside the period of the plan. Mountjoy could also be developed in the future, pending a Government decision to relocate the prison, and could accommodate almost a further 1,000 homes.