Go-ahead for offices on the Green

A consortium led by businessman Denis O'Brien has been granted planning permission by Dublin City Council to demolish Canada House on St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2 and replace it with a nine-storey office block.

This ends months of speculation over whether the planning authority would give the go-ahead for a taller building on the site.

In an off-market deal back in 2001, Denis O'Brien paid over €23 million for the 1970s-built six-storey building which is at the junction of St Stephen's Green and Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2 - adding to his already substantial commercial property portfolio.

The new building will have a floor area of 11,229sq m (120,868sq ft) with a double basement, five floors over ground and three penthouse floors set back from the main six-storey block. It will have 41 car-parking spaces in two basement floors accessed from Earlsfort Terrace. The existing building - widely regarded as architecturally uninspiring - was developed by Hardwicke and has a floor area of 3,716sq m (40,000sq ft).

Earlier tenants were Bank of Nova Scotia and Nixdorf. Bank of Scotland took an assignment on the main lease in recent years and now has a new headquarters beside the College of Surgeons in Dublin 2.