The Royal Dublin hotel on O'Connell Street has been purchased by property developer Joe O'Reilly.

Mr O'Reilly purchased the hotel, situated close to the long undeveloped Carlton cinema site, for an undisclosed sum from Allied Metropole Hotel Ltd, the company owned by businessman Michael Holland.

Staff at the hotel were informed of the sale yesterday and of the plan to close the hotel from January 5th next year.

The hotel has 45 full-time staff and employs another 33 people on a part-time basis.

While Mr O'Reilly has not said what his plans for the hotel are, it is likely he intends that the site will form part of a proposed development that will stretch from O'Connell Street back to the Ilac Centre, which lies between Henry Street and Parnell Street. Dublin City Council has indicated that Mr O'Reilly would be its preferred developer for the former Carlton cinema site if its effort to compulsorily acquire the site from its owners was successful. The purchase is being contested through the courts.

Mr O'Reilly also owns 50 per cent of the Ilac Centre and reportedly plans to link this property to the Carlton site as part of a planned major shopping and entertainment complex.

Earlier this year, Mr O'Reilly purchased the Pavilions shopping centre in Swords, Co Dublin, for more than €575 million in a deal that was described as the most significant property deal ever done in Ireland.

The purchase meant he had retail investments in Dublin worth something in the region of €2 billion.

His company, Castlethorn Developments built the Dundrum shopping centre, which is valued at approximately €1 billion.

The other shareholders in Castlethorn are John Fitzsimons and Liam Maye.

Separately and as a personal investment, Mr O'Reilly bought a 50 per cent stake in the Ilac Centre for €125 million.

He launched an upgrade of the centre with the aim eventually of linking it up with the development on the Carlton site.

Castlethorn is also a major developer of residential property and is the lead developer of the Adamstown development on 500 acres near Lucan in west Dublin.

Mr O'Reilly has just taken an €350 million stake in an office, retail and theatre development to be built at Grand Canal Square, Dublin 4.

The offices development is to be sold off in individual suites in a move aimed at facilitating medium-sized professional firms.