Property developer Ballymore has secured planning permission for a new headquarters building for Guinness owner Diageo in Dublin.
Dublin City Council has given the green light to Marbelsand Holding Ltd for the scheme that involves the repurposing of the Brewhouse 2 building at the St James’s Gate brewery in central Dublin into a office space.
The building, which was once part of Guinness’s brewery operations, will extend to just under 13,000sq ft, with Diageo as the anchor tenant.
The Brewhouse 2 planning application is the first phase of a master plan for the wider St James’s Gate site that comprises a mixed-use scheme, the Guinness Quarter, that will be integrated into the wider Liberties area.
Diageo has appointed Ballymore to deliver the project — now before the council in a separate planning application — which includes 336 housing units, a hotel, 300-seat performance space, food hall and marketplace, commercial works spaces and more than two acres of landscaped public spaces across a 12½-acre site.
The brewery operation at St James’s Gate is the home of Guinness and it has been brewing there since 1759.
A look ahead to 2023
The office scheme is to be seven storeys in height — two higher than the five-storey Brewhouse 2 building.
The council granted planning permission after its planner’s report said the proposed development would not injure the amenity of property in the vicinity and accords with the city development plan.
‘Significant building’
Shay Cleary Architects are designing the office scheme and told the city council that “the proposals will ensure that this important and significant building continues in use into the future as an intrinsic part of the larger campus”.
A planning report lodged with the application by consultants Brady Shipman Martin noted that the proposed redevelopment of the former Brewhouse 2 building “represents an important opportunity in the revitalisation of not only this building but a strategic positive intervention in the first phase of the redevelopment of the Guinness Quarter”.
