Demolition of Croke Villas to pave way for €12m project

Demolition of the Croke Villas flats complex, to allow for a €12 million joint redevelopment project by Croke Park Stadium and Dublin City Council, is to begin in the coming months.

The scheme will include a new “processional boulevard” to the stadium from Ballybough Road, which will become the only match-day entrance, taking crowds out of the surrounding streets.

It will also fund the long-awaited regeneration of the 1960s’ flats complex, most of which has been boarded up for almost a decade and is in an advanced state of decay.

Croke Villas was to have been regenerated under a public-private partnership agreement with Bennett Developments, but the plans collapsed in December 2008.

Over the previous two years, half of the 79 flats in the complex had been vacated in preparation for their demolition.

Homes have been found for most of the remaining tenants in the intervening years with just seven flats remaining occupied.

New entrance to stadium

Early last year the council reached agreement with the GAA, following three years of negotiations, to transfer lands to the sports organisation for a payment of €6.4 million, but was unable to sign off on the deal without the approval of the then environment minister

Alan Kelly

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Mr Kelly sanctioned the project last October. Under the deal Croke Park Ltd agreed to pay €3.9 million towards the regeneration of Croke Villas and €2.5 million for the new road, with the remaining funding for new housing to be provided by the State.

On the land gained, which includes part of the current Croke Villas site, the GAA would apply for planning permission for a new sports pavilion – including a handball alley – and a new entrance to the stadium.

Residents moved

The council’s plans involve a four- to five-year building programme. It is due to start shortly with the refurbishment of seven houses on Ballybough Road, the construction of 25 new homes to replace a derelict terrace opposite Croke Villas on Sackville Avenue, the widening of Sackville Avenue, and the demolition and redevelopment of Croke Villas.

The demolition of the flats, which was approved by the council’s planning department in recent days, will be done in phases, with the remaining residents moving to the newly refurbished houses on Ballybough Road ahead of the demolition of their blocks.

Three of the blocks face Sackville Avenue and house 21 flats each, while the remaining block, closer to the Royal Canal, has 18 flats.

Once the demolition is complete, the site will be planted with grass and fenced off pending rebuilding.

The deal between the council and the GAA came close to collapse when Croke Villas was identified as one of the estates with the potential to house families under the Government's action plan on homelessness, published after the death near Leinster House of homeless man Jonathan Corrie in December 2014.

Mr Kelly had directed the council to refurbish empty flats in estates that were awaiting approval for regeneration and make them available to homeless families.

However councillors refused to approve the plan, and eventually the proposal was dropped.