Leisureplex demolition looms at Premier Inn site

Construction of Cork city’s second Premier Inn to begin early in the New Year.

An aerial image of the former Leisureplex site on Brian Boru Street. Picture: Chani Anderson

Demolition work is to begin at the former Leisureplex site in Cork City’s Victorian Quarter in preparation for the construction of the city’s second Premier Inn hotel.

The brand’s owners, the UK-based Whitbread group, have confirmed to the Irish Examiner that demolition experts — Limerick-based O’Kelly Bros Civil Engineering Ltd — are due on site this month.

CGI of the 174-bed Premier Inn hotel that will be built on the site of the Leisureplex, below, at the junction of McCurtain St, Brian Boru St, and Summerhill.

O’Kelly Bros will install site hoarding and temporary support structures before demolishing the building walls and concrete slab in November.

A section of the historic former postal sorting-office façade on Brian Boru St — which is a protected structure — is due to be restored and retained and will be incorporated in to the 174-bedroom hotel development, which will also include a guest-focused restaurant and bar fronting on to Brian Boru St.

The design will conserve elements of the former art-deco cinema façade, recognising the heritage of the location.

Demolition of the Coliseum Leisureplex on the corner of MacCurtain Street and Brian Boru Street, Cork, is "imminent".

The site opened as the Coliseum cinema in 1913, which operated until 1964. A postal sorting office — known as Bridge House — was built on the site in 1940 and both the former cinema and sorting-office buildings were incorporated into the Leisureplex entertainment complex in the 1980s.

View of the Coliseum Cinema MacCurtain Street Cork March 1964.

The section of the new hotel on MacCurtain St will be clad in red brick to tie in with other Victorian buildings in the vicinity, while the use of white/cream stone cladding and brick work will reference the materials used for Trinity Presbyterian Church, a landmark building at the bottom of Summerhill North.

In preparation for construction of the new hotel, ground remediation works are expected to begin before Christmas and continue into the early new year, before the site is handed over to a principal contractor at the end of January.

Whitbread is in advanced discussions with a shortlist of contractors to build the hotel, with an appointment expected to be confirmed before Christmas.

The interior of the former leisure and entertainment complex has already been cleared out. The complex closed in December and had been a popular spot for 10-pin bowling, pool and snooker, quasar, and a games arcade.

A planning application for a similar-style venue on Half Moon St in the city centre was recently lodged by John Cleary Developments (JCD) Group, with a decision due next month.

At the 0.5-acre Leisureplex site — acquired by Whitbread in 2024 for €5.5m — all of the approvals needed to begin demolition have been secured.

That marks “a major milestone for our second Premier Inn in Cork”, said Emma O’Shiel, project and programme manager for Whitbread in Ireland, who added that they can now move “from planning to delivery”.

Ms O’Shiel said the redevelopment of the Leisureplex site in to a hotel would create jobs and “support the continued regeneration of the Victorian Quarter”, which has become one of the city’s liveliest streets

The build project will cause some traffic disruption at what is a busy inner-city junction, with one vehicular lane on Brian Boru St, as well as a cycle lane, earmarked for closure for the duration of the works.

CGI View of the planned hotel.

The Leisureplex redevelopment follows on from the Whitbread group’s first venture in to Cork, a 187-bedroom Premier Inn it developed on Morrison’s Quay, which opened in January 2024, with the creation of 40 jobs. Ms O’Sheil said its success had “exceeded expectations and reinforced our confidence in the city as an attractive destination for both business and leisure travellers”.

Figures compiled by the hotel-occupancy monitor website trending.ie show occupancy rates in Cork city are on an upward trajectory, moving from 75% last year (Bank of Ireland, hospitality sector figures) to an 80% average for the year to date, with a notable bounce in September, up to 90%.

The latest occupancy rate (published this week) for Whitbread’s regional UK estate, which includes Ireland, is 81%.

Whitbread has been investing heavily in Ireland since launching its Premier Inn brand’s expansion programme in 2018.

The company currently operates six trading hotels across Dublin and Cork, with a further two flagship city-centre hotels in Dublin City centre scheduled to open in early 2027.

Its Ireland hotels made Stg£22m (€26m) in the first six months of the group's financial year (March to August), up from Stg£18.7m (€22.2m) for the same period in 2025.