Premier Inn secures approval for 176-bed hotel in Clerys Quarter

The UK’s Premier Inn hotel chain has been given the go-ahead for an expanded hotel in the Clerys Quarter site on Dublin’s O’Connell Street.

The Whitbread Group-owned firm purchased the hotel site for €21.8 million last August, when it had planning permission for a seven-storey, 176-bedroom hotel.

Dublin City Council has granted planning permission to Whitbread subsidiary PI Hotels and Restaurants Ireland Ltd for a nine-storey, 229-bedroom hotel.

The Clerys Quarter is due to open shortly having already secured two major retailers, H&M and Flannels.

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The council’s planners’ report recommended permission be granted after concluding that the proposal would sit comfortably with the development and would also complement the ongoing public-realm improvement works in the vicinity.

The council decided that the proposed development was unlikely to have a negative impact on the amenities of adjoining properties.

The council’s report said that, pending the outcome of its analysis of the supply and demand for tourism-related accommodation in Dublin city, planning applications for hotels and aparthotels would be considered on a case-by-case basis.

In a planning report lodged on behalf of PI Hotels, planning consultants Tom Phillips & Associates said notwithstanding nine-storey height of the scheme, “the proposal is screened from view from a number of locations across the city due to it being located in a heavily built-up area and located on a secondary street”.

The report said that the proposed building’s height was the same as the hotel for which planning permission had already been granted on the site.

In a separate decision, the city council has refused City ID Capel Limited planning permission to reconfigure its plans for a 142-bed hotel into an aparthotel on Capel Street.

The application was turned down after the council planners concluded that the scheme would exacerbate the existing over-concentration of guest accommodation, aparthotel and hotel developments in this area, would prevent the delivery of mixed-use development and would fundamentally undermine the vision of the city development plan for the provision of a dynamic mix of uses within the city centre.

The council planner’s report said that “the subject site is a prime city-centre site, and given its location, could be used for residential development”.