Hotels Restuarants: A bitter war of attrition is raging between Dublin's largest pub group, Capital Bars plc, and the upmarket Fitzwilliam Hotel over the development of the vacant Planet Hollywood site on St Stephen's Green.
Mr Liam O'Dwyer, managing director of Capital bars, claims the hotel's chief executive, Mr Michael Holland, made an offer for the failed restaurant site last year but the bid was rejected on the grounds that it failed to match the €1.7 million the group acquired it for in 2000.
Capital Bars, which owns some of Dublin's largest and most popular pubs, has been desperately seeking a buyer for leasehold of the cavernous site, which stretches to 1,672 sq m (18,000 sq ft), since it lost a Supreme Court appeal last July preventing it operating a late night bar and entertainment venue on the site. The group had planned to re-open the former Planet Hollywood restaurant as an Italian-style bar, similar to the Café en Seine "super-pub" on Dawson Street; however this was shelved after the Fitzwilliam Hotel won a High Court action against the development in September 2002.
Mr Holland told a newspaper at the time he took the case because he believed the area's ambience would be adversely affected by the venue and said it was important that the revelry associated with late night entertainment areas such as Temple Bar, was not imported into the St Stephen's Green area. But Mr O'Dwyer claims he received written assurance from Mr Holland before acquiring the site that the hotel would not object to a late-night bar providing it operated according to certain agreed conditions.
Capital Bars later failed in its appeal to the Supreme Court when it upheld the High Court's ruling that the venue's planning permission relating to the operation of a public bar had expired.
After losing the court battle, Mr O'Dwyer changed tack and lodged a planning application to Dublin City Council to convert the former restaurant into a retail unit, but again The Fitzwilliam Hotel objected to the development. It is now eight months since the application was lodged and the group has still not received a decision from the Council.
During this time Mr O'Dwyer has also had the 35-year lease on the market but he claims the site's "considerable size" is a deterrent and most of the offers received were for a sub-section of the unit.
He said: "We received a number of bids but none of them have so far matched our requirements and we will not sell the lease until we are happy with the terms of a sale." It is understood The Fitzwilliam Hotel's bid was substantially below the leasehold's market price.
But the venue's long-running vacancy is a heavy burden to the group and Mr O'Dywer claims his latest plan to re-open the site as a specially-licenced restaurant is to insure against a possible rejection of his retail planning permission application.
Capital Bars intends to plough €1.5 million into developing the restaurant if it fails to secure permission to convert the site into a retail outlet. This means the company will have to almost double its investment on a unit that has so far failed to return any revenue.
Mr O'Dwyer claims The Fitzwilliam is playing "a waiting in the grass game" and said the hotel has promised to ensure any restaurant operating in the former Planet Hollywood site "will have to do so in exact accordance with current licencing laws".
The pub tycoon, who made his first made his money from O'Dwyers on Mount Street, argues this stance from the Fitzwilliam Hotel will put enormous pressure on his restaurant because the licencing laws are complicated and are open to varying legal interpretations.
When the Irish Times contacted the Fitzwilliam Hotel's owners,chief executive Mr Michael Holland was overseas and unavailable for comment.
