Dublin planners are expected to fast track a National Asset Management Agency-backed scheme to transform a derelict dockland mill into a multi-million pound high-tech office complex.
The €150m (£118m) redevelopment of the capital’s historic Boland’s Mill — one of the largest commercial schemes in Dublin since the crash — is being steered through the planning stage by Mark Reynolds and Glen Crann, of agents Savills, acting for NAMA.
Any scheme proposed within the Docklands Strategic Development Zone (SDZ), created last May, allows developers to secure rapid approval from Dublin city planners which cannot be appealed to An Bord Pleanála [correct], the independent body set up to oversea planning decisions made by local authorities in Ireland.
Boland’s mill closed in 2001 and the site is now derelict. Within the complex the older stone-built buildings facing onto Ringsend Road and Grand Canal Dock, together with two terraced houses on Barrow Street, have been listed. The taller concrete silos on the site are not protected and will be demolished.
The application includes the restoration of the five original mill buildings and the construction of three new office and residential blocks. Not only would it give the city 324,000sq ft of badly needed Grade A offices it would create work for around 2,300 people.
To overlook several new streets and squares, the tallest building would be 14-stories and 174 feet high. A second, 15-storey apartment block is also planned, but it would be lower in height at 157 feet. The third new building, also an office block, would be 13 storeys and up to 160 feet high. There would also be shops, cafes, restaurants and an exhibition venue.
Under the SDZ scheme a building of 15-stories is permissible at the Boland’s site. Dublin’s current tallest commercial building — the Google-owned Montevetro building on nearby Barrow Street — is 15-stories tall, but buildings of up to 22-stories or 289 feet are only permitted at two locations in the dockland’s development zone at the Point Square, on the north side, and Britain Quay to the south.
A decision on the application is expected early next year. “If that is forthcoming the entire project could be completed by the end of 2017,” said a Savills’ spokesman.
Dublin Docklands Development Authority plans to build three 12 to 16-storey office buildings and a boutique hotel on the historic site were rejected in 2006 because it was felt they would be out of scale and character with the area. NAMA took control of the site six years later and since then the area has been dubbed Dublin’s “Silicon Dock” because of its popularity with high-tech multinationals such as Google and Facebook.
The scheme has recently attracted some misdirected concern over its alleged links to Ireland republican history. Boland’s Mill, however, is not the location of the headquarters of the 3d Battalion of Irish Volunteers led by Eamon de Valera during the 1916 rising. Those headquarters were based at Boland’s Bakery, on the site of the current-day Treasury Building, located at the junction of Grand Canal Street and Macken Street, and then known as Great Clarence Street.
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