Hotel planned for Boland's bakery site is refused planning permission

Plans for a new hotel in the Markets area of Dublin’s north inner city by one of Northern Ireland’s leading hotel groups have been rejected.

Bord Pleanála has reversed a decision of Dublin City Council to grant planning permission for the development of a 62-bedroom hotel on a 0.2-hectare site that includes the former Boland’s bakery and biscuit factory off Capel Street.

Cathedral Leisure is part of Beannchor which is owner of the five-star Merchant Hotel in Belfast.

It had originally sought to develop a 96-bedroom hotel on the site which incorporates a number of protected structures including the Victorian bakery.

In the face of considerable third-party objections as well as concerns from council planners, Cathedral Leisure reduced the size of the scheme to a 62-bedroom hotel, while reducing the proposed height of the building from 28m to 15m.

The company, which is led by businessman, Bill Wolsey, had planned to make Dublin the second location for a Bullitt Hotel after it launched the brand in Belfast in 2016.

In its ruling, Bord Pleanála acknowledged that Cathedral Leisure had revised and improved the layout of the proposed ground floor and mezzanine floor of the hotel in the former bakery building which reduced the amount of fabric which would be removed from the protected structure.

However, it said the overall revised proposal was of “poor design” and did not constitute “an adequate response to the context and opportunity of this urban site”.

The board said it had rejected the recommendation of its own planning inspector to approve the project for that reason.

The council’s decision to grant planning permission for the hotel had been appealed by a number of parties including Creekvale, which is seeking to develop a 278-bedroom hotel in a nearby location on the site of the existing Begley’s Fruit Market on Arran Street East.

A large number of nearby residents, as well as owners and tenants of adjoining premises, also made submissions.

Dublin City Council had claimed the proposed hotel would represent significant investment in a key underutilised site.

Council planners said the project would have regenerated historic buildings, reutilised a dilapidated area and opened up a backland site with “high end and innovative new visitor accommodation and publicly accessible spaces”

The proposal had also received the backing of Fáilte Ireland.