Green light for €150m Boland’s Mill development

Plans for the €150 million redevelopment of the historic Boland's Mill site in Dublin's docklands, including the construction of a 15-storey apartment block, have been approved by Dublin City Council. The Nama-backed development involves the construction of three new office and residential blocks and the restoration of the five original, but now derelict, mill buildings.

However the reference to the “mill” has been removed from the title of the development which will be called “Boland’s Quay”. The development is one of the first schemes undertaken though the fast-track planning system for the docklands.

The Docklands Strategic Development Zone (SDZ) , approved by An Bord Pleanála last year, allows property owners to secure construction permission from Dublin city planners which cannot be appealed to An Bord Pleanála.

Boland’s Quay is one of the largest developments planned for Dublin since the crash, with almost 30,000sq m of office space for about 2,300 workers, 42 apartments, shops, cafes, restaurants and an exhibition building. New streets and squares will also be created as part of the development.

The tallest building will be 14 storeys and 53m in height. A 15-storey apartment block is also planned, but it will be lower in height, at 47.8m. The third new building, also an office block, will be 13 storeys and up to 49m. Under the SDZ scheme, a building of 15 storeys is permissible at the Boland’s site.

Dublin’s current tallest commercial building, the Google-owned Montevetro building on nearby Barrow Street, is 15 storeys tall, but buildings of up to 22 storeys or 88m could be permitted at two locations in the Dockland’s development zone at the Point Square on the north side and Britain Quay on the south side.

The principal historic buildings on the site are two six-storey stone warehouse buildings dating from the 1830s, as well as a number of buildings on Barrow Street dating from the 1870s. Plans to build three 12- to 16-storey office buildings and a boutique hotel on the site were rejected in 2006 on the grounds they would be out of scale with the area. Receiver Mark Reynolds of Savills said demolition would start immediately and construction would take more than two years.

Boland's Mill was previously owned by developer Seán Kelly's Benton Properties and a Treasury Holdings company.