Dominick St flats rebuild running a year behind schedule

Plans to regenerate Dominick Street Flats in Dublin are running a full year behind schedule, with the complex of 72 social housing apartments now expected to be built by 2021 – despite the Dublin City Council (DCC) housing delivery report listing it to be finished for early 2020.

The local authority published a tender seeking a construction firm for the project this week, with the estimated cost at around €39.5 million.

The tender specifications outlined that works to regenerate the 1960s flat complex are expected to begin this July. The estimated duration of the construction contract is two and a half years, meaning the flats would only be finished by early 2021, if there are no further delays.

The new six-storey flat complex will have a basement car-park, playground facilities and a community garden

The latest DCC report on its delivery of housing projects lists the Dominick Street Flats redevelopment to be completed by the start of 2020. The building work will begin a full two years after the project was given the green light by former minister for housing Simon Coveney.

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Exemplar

A project overview available to construction firms interested in bidding states that the flat complex will be an “exemplar for apartment living and social housing in the city”.

The site is on the new Luas Cross City line, just off Parnell Street, and the development will also include retail and commercial facilities.

In September last year DCC applied for an additional €10 million in funding towards the project from the Department of Housing, which had already committed €22 million in July 2016. The department is funding the social housing aspect of the project, with the local authority funding the cost of the commercial and retail elements.

The new six-storey flat complex will have a basement car-park, playground facilities and a community garden.

The Dominick Street scheme was one of five large-scale housing projects the council was pursuing in partnership with developer Bernard McNamara before the collapse of the public-private partnership system in mid-2008.

The regeneration project was shelved during the recession before being revived in 2016 after several delays.