Hatch Hall value slips from €16m to €6m

THE Galway property developer Gerry Barrett is to seek €6 million for Hatch Hall, the former Victorian university hall at Hatch Street in Dublin 2 which he bought near the end of 2004 for over €16 million.

The sale follows the transfer of substantial loans to Nama by Barrett’s development company, Edward Holdings.

Estate agent Douglas Newman Good is handling the sale of the distinctive property which is currently used as a hostel for asylum seekers.

The Department of Justice and Equality is to rent the centre for at least another year at an annual fee of €350,000.

The sale will bring to an end a six-year campaign by Barrett to capitalise on its prime city centre location, initially opting for a five-star boutique hotel which was blocked by An Bord Pleanála, and eventually settling for a permission to convert it into 36 high-end apartments.

Barrett was up against strong competition when he bought Hatch Hall near the peak of the property market just as he was heavily engaged in developing Scotch Hall shopping centre and the D Hotel in Drogheda as well as the G Hotel in Galway.

He initially got planning approval from Dublin City Council to operate an 81-bedroom hotel on the site of Hatch Hall by more than doubling the size of the 2,787sq m (30,000sq ft) listed building.

This would have involved adding two storeys to the four-storey building along Hatch Lane and the provision of a swimming pool at basement level.

It would also have seen the demolition of a section of the three/four-storey building at the junction of Hatch Lane and Hatch Place and replacing it with a seven-storey structure.

The planning appeals board came down heavily against the plan saying that the changes required to turn it into a hotel would involve alterations to the protected structure to an unacceptable level.

It also said the seven-storey addition to the hall would be visually obtrusive.

Barrett later secured permission to convert the 83-bedroom student facility into 36 apartments with the option of using the chapel as a health and fitness centre.

Hatch Hall dates from the early 1900s and was run as a student hall by the Jesuits for around 90 years.