Hilton abandons plan to build Dublin hotel over conservationists' action

Hilton International has abandoned plans to open a major hotel near College Green in Dublin. The £35 million project has been bedevilled by objections from conservationists who maintained that it would result in the demolition or alteration of up to 12 historic buildings on the triangular site bounded by College Street, Westmoreland Street and Fleet Street.

Almost three years since Hilton first looked at the hotel site, the project was still held up because of a legal challenge to last December's decision by An Bord Pleanala to grant planning permission for the five-star hotel.

Senior executives of the Hilton group have had doubts about the project for some time because of the proximity of the site to O'Connell Street, an area frequently at the centre of reports on inner city crime.

However, the last straw was the prolonged legal challenge to the planning permission. Lancefort Ltd, a company set up by conservationists, sought a judicial review of the planning appeal board's ruling, claiming it had no power to approve developments which contravene the Dublin City Development Plan.

Mr Richard Barrett of Treasury Holdings, which was due to develop the hotel, said Hilton could not understand how a group like Lancefort with no assets could delay a project for so long "with no definitive end in sight".

He said the case had been before the High Court on 17 occasions and the Supreme Court on two occasions. Even before the action is heard on November 12th, the legal bill already exceeds £1 million. Treasury is now to look for an alternative hotel operator - but with the departure of Hilton it is more likely to proceed with a large office development on the AIB site, which already has full planning permission.

Hilton's senior vice-president in the UK, Mr John Barnsey, has written to Treasury Holdings confirming that it will not be going ahead with the hotel. He said in his letter that as an unintended result of other urban renewal initiatives in the city, the immediate area around the proposed hotel site suffers from urban blight and is perceived as unattractive and, at times, unsafe. A BBC programme showing drug pushers openly selling heroin on O'Connell Street "is of grave concern".

Mr Barnsey said that when Hilton first looked at the site it was understood that an initiative was to be undertaken to sort out the drug and crime problems of the area. "Regrettably this has not happened and, if anything, it is worse today." Mr Barnsey also complained that because of the reduced number of bedrooms allowed in the proposed hotel, the cost per room would work out at more than £200,000. "With the reduced rooms, the revenue is inadequate to cover the level of investment."

Mr Barnsey has said that despite the decision not to proceed with the hotel opposite Trinity College, Hilton still wanted to open a hotel in Dublin.