The sole project to emerge from a programme to repurpose vacant commercial buildings for housing has been granted planning permission in Dublin 4.
Plans have now been approved for social homes within a 1990s office block at Fitzwilliam Quay, Ringsend.
Dublin City Council in 2022 set up an “adaptive reuse” unit to combat dereliction and provide homes through the acquisition and reuse of vacant properties. More than 500 properties were assessed for their suitability for adaptation, and feasibility studies were prepared for 15 conversion projects. However, just one project is proceeding, the conversion of an office block at Fitzwilliam Quay in Ringsend.
The conversion of vacant and derelict buildings into housing was one of the 10 recommendations of the Dublin City Taskforce report published in October 2024. A report commissioned by the council earlier this year said up to 40 per cent of Dublin’s housing targets could be met by reusing vacant commercial buildings and flats above shops for homes.
READ MORE
The block at 14-15 Fitzwilliam Quay on the Dodder river, the former Dublin headquarters of international PR and marketing firm FleishmanHillard, was bought by the council for €3.55 million in 2023, less than the €3.95 million asking price.
The council plans to convert the building into 15 one-bedroom apartments, ranging in size from 49sq m to 55sq m, exceeding the 45sq m minimum size for one-bedroom apartments. All windows will be replaced and increased in size, and new internal wall, floor and attic insulation and renewable heating systems will be added.
An existing car park in the front of the building will be removed and replaced by a communal landscaped garden. A bicycle store will be built housing 15 long-stay and eight visitor bicycle spaces.
“The proposal seeks to provide zero on-site car parking and is therefore considered a car-free development,” the council said.
The plans were this month approved by councillors and the project is expected to go to tender shortly.
The conversion of vacant and derelict city properties is to be the central focus of a new council-owned company to be established this year to lead city regeneration. Former secretary general of the Department of Health Robert Watt has been appointed to head the company that was established under a recommendation of Dublin City Taskforce.
The taskforce was set up to develop a strategy to improve the city centre in response to riots in November 2023, incited by far-right agitators in the wake of the stabbing of three children and a carer on Parnell Square.
It emerged in recent days the new body, which has yet to be formally named, will be involved in the redevelopment of the “Carlton site” on O’Connell Street, following the purchase of 2.5 acres of the land by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) from UK property group Hammerson for up to €80 million, to facilitate the development of the MetroLink.
While TII will be building a MetroLink rail station underneath the former Carlton Cinema on Upper O’Connell Street, the new council company will be tasked with leading the regeneration of the above-ground site, which will include a significant residential component.
A report commissioned by the council from environmental researchers at the Centre for Public Impact and TransCap Initiative, published in May, found up to 16,000 homes could be created from vacant commercial and above-the-shop space.
“This would present an important contribution to [the council’s] target of creating 40,000 new homes between 2022 and 2028,” the report said.
However, it found the cost of refurbishing the city’s empty building stock is high, with up to €2.86 billion required to bring vacant property back into use.
