Planning&Development

Council says yes to AIB HQ plansDublin City Council has approved plans for an office block of five to eight storeys at AIB's Bankcentre HQ in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. The new building of 18,600sq m (200,209sq ft) will be to the north-east of the site close to a large extension already under construction.

The proposed development is phase three of the bank's expansion scheme at the 5.7-hectare Bankcentre site which will see accommodation at the centre rise to 88,508sq m (952,692sq ft).

Plan for Clarence Hotel appealedRedevelopment plans for the Clarence Hotel on the quayside in Temple Bar will create "a silly set piece" oversailed by a "greedy cybership", says conservationist Michael Smith.

Smith is among three appellants of the council's decision to grant permission to developer Paddy McKillen and U2's Bono and The Edge for the €150 million scheme which will see the 44-bed boutique hotel turned into a five-star, 141-bed facility over nine storeys.

Foster + Partner's design involves the demolition of a number of protected buildings and the construction of a rooftop "skycatcher" atrium.

Smith says the site "integrates first-rate exemplars of Dublin's rich quayscape" and should not be subsumed into "one spaceship". He says that while Bono and The Edge "deserve credit for restoring the interior of the hotel in the 1990s", the council's permission "has the air of a rubber stamping by breathless Foster and U2 fans with a misplaced obsession with tiring cliches like 'signature buildings' and 'the knowledge economy'."

An Taisce says the scheme is the "largest proposal for demolition of protected structures in a single scheme in Ireland" in a decade. The proposal is not appropriate to its historic city centre location, but would be more appropriate in the docklands area, says An Taisce.

Former Smurfit HQ scheme rejectedDún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council has refused planning permission to turn the former Jefferson Smurfit headquarters at Beech Hill in Clonskeagh into a residential and office complex. Over 360 apartments in 17 blocks and three office blocks were planned for the 5.5-hectare site on Beech Hill Road adjoining UCD's Belfield campus.

The council rejected the scheme, rising to eight storeys, because vehicular access from a busy road would cause serious traffic congestion and endanger public safety.

This is the second time developer Pamerette (owned by the McCormack, Kelly and Flynn families who bought the site for €25 million) has been refused permission. Pamerette has negotiated a joint venture with UCD, which will provide five acres of land in a deal that will see some of the apartments handed over to the college.