The owner of the Citywest hotel complex in west Dublin plans to build a large cemetery on the nearby site of former golf club lands. The 8,047-plot burial ground would be worth at least €20 million, based upon the price of plots in other cemeteries in the area.
An entity controlled by Tetrarch Capital, the owner of the Citywest complex, has submitted a planning application to South Dublin County Council (SDCC) for the proposed scheme. Cape Wrath Hotel is seeking permission to build the cemetery, along with a number of columbarium walls for interning the ashes of people who are cremated. The proposed scheme also includes an office and reception building and 110 car-parking spaces.
It is understood that the scheme would also include landscaping works, incorporating mature woodland and parklands on the site that would be open to the public as a green amenity.
It is the second cemetery proposal from Tetrarch in recent months, following its submission of a plan for a smaller 5,806-plot facility adjacent to the Deep Park Hotel in Howth, where the company also wants to build a new hotel. It applied for permission for the Howth scheme in October and planners have sought further information from the company.
The Citywest cemetery proposal on the site of the former golf club, which closed in 2020, is the second scheme Tetrarch has proposed for the lands. In 2021, it sought permission for a large “sports and civic campus”, incorporating rugby and GAA pitches, a golf driving range, a minigolf facility, tennis and foot five-a-side courts and a bar and restaurant.
That proposal ran into opposition from local Saggart businesses and the residents’ association, who expressed concerns to the council over traffic and whether a road contained within the development could be used to link lands for a big strategic housing development. One objector said he feared it was a “Trojan horse” for residential development.
Planners sought further information from Tetrarch last summer, before declaring the application as withdrawn earlier this year.
The proposed cemetery would be linked to the busy N7 road via a local route, Garters Lane. There is a shortage of burial grounds in Dublin and SDCC lists charges of €2,400 per single plot on its websites for the various cemeteries it operates, although its website states there are “no spaces available”. Based upon this valuation, Tetrarch could generate €19.2 million from the plots alone.
The company is also planning to build a new pitch for the local St Mary’s GAA club on separate lands nearby, which were previously the site of its Executive Golf Course. Works have yet to commence, but is envisaged that the pitch will be ready in 2023 and gifted for the use of locals.
Tetrarch and a co-investor acquired the Citywest complex, which was first developed by late businessman Jim Mansfield, from the National Asset Management Agency in 2014 for about €30 million. The company, which also owns the Mount Juliet hotel complex in Kilkenny, took full control of Citywest in 2018.
The hotel, the largest in the State with more than 750 bedrooms, is currently used to house Ukrainian refugees. Citywest was also used exclusively by the State via the Health Service Executive during the Covid crisis, initially as an overflow hospital and subsequently as a vaccination centre.
A spokesman for Tetrach, which was cofounded in 2011 by its two of its principals, Michael McElligott and James Byrne, confirmed that it has submitted the cemetery planning application to SDCC.
