US and Canadian ice hockey stars, including former Stanley Cup winners, have emerged as investors in the proposed €250 million ice hockey arena for Dublin. Eoin Burke-Kennedy reports that the business consortium behind the plan, Prime Arena Holdings, said several current and former players including former New York Islanders captain Pat Flatley are backing the scheme which Flatley said represented a unique opportunity to establish hockey infrastructure and culture in a big international city.
Back to more quotidien matters, Gordon Deegan reports that Ardstone’s latest plans for a €356 million 562-apartment scheme on former Jesuit lands at the corner of Sandford Rd and Milltown Rd, Dublin 6 have been been appealed to An Bord Pleanála by local residents just weeks after getting the green light from Dublin City Council.
And, in Killiney, activist Ali Hewson and other residents face a fresh planning battle as developers look to put 32 apartments on the grounds of Monebello House on Killiney Hill Road. An Coimisiún Pleanála previously rejected permission for four “very large” two-storey, four-bedroom flat-roofed houses on the site.
And sticking with housing, John McManus wonders whether rising renovations costs are giving potential homebuyers cold feet. It comes as Dublin City Council look to sell 32 properties acquired over the last eight years for social housing. The council says it does not have the resources – another word for money – to do them up to the required standard and is looking for approval from city councillors to sell them.
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A former Google employee who claimed he and two other black colleagues lost their jobs because of alleged racial discrimination in the performance management processes of its Dublin office has failed in an equality claim at the Workplace Relation Commission. Stephen Bourke has the details.
An Post is lining up Fergal Leamy , the former head of Coillte and Glen Dimplex, to become its next chief executive in a move that would mark his return to the semi-State sector after seven years, writes Joe Brennan.
Joe also reports that the National Treasury Management Agency has declined to say what future role National Asset Management Agency chief executive Brendan McDonagh will hold as the crisis-era toxic property loans organisation is wound down in the coming months.
Further afield, Texas is suing Netflix, accusing the streaming company of spying on children and designing its platform to be addictive. Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, said Netflix has for years falsely represented to consumers that it did not collect or share user data, when it actually tracked and sold viewers’ habits and preferences to commercial data brokers and advertising technology companies, making billions of dollars a year.
And just months after acquiring 65 per cent of New Zealand meat processor Alliance Group, Dawn Meats has bought German-based meat importer and distributor, Alexander Eyckeler for an undisclosed sum. Ciara O’Brien reports that the German company is one of New Zealand-based Alliance Group’s largest customers for lamb, mutton and venison.
In Commercial Property this week, the Congregation of Christian Brothers are looking for a buyer for its former monastery on Synge Street in Dublin 8 beside Synge Street CBS, the alma mater of numerous Dublin luminaries, at a guide price of €3.75 million with the proceeds going towards meeting what the selling agent describes as the Christian Brothers “charitable and legal obligations”.
Hoteliers Paul and Charles O’Callaghan have secured flexible workspace provider Iconic Offices as occupier for Sandwith Court - the former Archer’s Garage - in Dublin’s south city centre. The building served for many years as the Dublin headquarters of KBC Bank before its exit from the Irish market.
And the MHL Hotel Collection, the Irish hotel group formed by American billionaire John Malone and Irish partners Paul Higgins and John Lally, has completed a €190 million refinancing of four of its hotels with AIB, covering the College Green, Galmont, Trinity City and Limerick Strand hotels.
Finally, EasyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou;s Easygroup claims in an Irish Commercial Court case with implications for digital business in the post-Brexit era that a fundraising website infringed its trademarks. Barry O’Halloran was in court.
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