Developer seeks three-year extension for 34‑storey tower hotel on Cork’s Custom House Quay

A CGI render of the planned Custom House Tower. Picture: Pedersen Focus

Tower Development Properties Ltd is seeking to extend planning permission for a landmark 34-storey tower hotel on Custom House Quay in Cork city, for which consent expires in May.

The request for a three-year extension was made on January 19, as the clock runs down on a five year planning grant, issued by An Bord Pleanála (now An Coimisiún Pleanála) on March 22, 2021.

Cork City Council, to whom the request was made, has until March 12 to decide whether or not to grant it. If the Council does find in the developer’s favour, the extended permission will run to June 2, 2029.

A number of business representative bodies have written to the council expressing their support for the permission to be extended, among them IBEC and Cork Chamber. Fine Gael councillor Des Cahill also wrote in support of the developer’s request.

Ibec head of regional policy and engagement Helen Leahy said the development would “secure the redevelopment of strategic, under-utilised urban land in a prominent city centre location”. It would also act as a catalyst for investment. Moreover it would “enhance the townscape” of an evolving area, “essential to meeting the Cork City Development Plan vision of marking the gateway between the city centre and docklands”, Ms Leahy wrote.

Conor Healy of Cork Chamber said the site’s location — near both the rail terminus at Kent Station and the central bus hub at Parnell Place — meant it was “perfectly positioned to promote low-carbon commuting”. 

Moreover, the development would “facilitate a major injection of capital into the local economy” in both the construction phase and long-term operational stage, while it would also “breathe new life into our maritime legacy” through the restoration and “creative adaptation of the 200-year-old bonded warehouses” on Custom House Quay.

Mr Cahill made similar arguments, adding that the “modern, slender, elegant form” would “attain primacy in an emerging cluster of high buildings at this transitional location”. The proposed development would also create new public realm, he said.

The application seeking an extension of time to build a 140m, 240-bed tower hotel, plus 25 residential suites, on Custom House Quay, was made by planning consultants McCutcheon Halley, on behalf of Tower Development Properties Ltd, who previously sought to extend planning permission on another project in Cork, known as The Prism — a glass office block pitched as Cork’s answer to New York’s flatiron building. However, because the request to extend it did not meet planning requirements, it was refused. The site, near Parnell Bus Station, remains undeveloped.

The Prism was to be the first Cork development by Tower Development Properties Ltd, headed up by Kerryman Kevin O’Sullivan, who cut his teeth on major construction projects in the US as part of the Tower Holdings Group, of which he is president. His brother Dónal, who ran Navillus, a major New York construction company, was jailed in 2023 for his part in a payroll fraud, but was released after about six months. He later lost an appeal to overturn his conviction.