South Dublin County Council has agreed to sell 48 acres of land for €26.4 million to a company that plans to build the State’s largest film and TV studios.
The deal, agreed on Monday evening, will see land at Grange Castle Business Park in Dublin 22 sold to a company called Lens Media Ltd, which intends to develop a media park with 12 sound stages, 100,000sq ft of workshop space and another 100,000sq ft of offices.
Lens Media is backed by former Windmill Lane founder James Morris, film and TV producer Alan Moloney, who has been responsible for drama output such as The Clinic and was more recently involved in films such as Brooklyn and the Siege of Jadotville, and US-based producer Gary Levinsohn, who was nominated for an Academy Award for the film Saving Private Ryan. The company declined to name other investors in the project.
Lens Media said it would initially invest €125 million in developing the media park which, once complete, will provide 1,800 direct roles and a similar number of ancillary jobs. Construction of the facility, which is situated near Clondalkin, is expected to generate between 1,200 and 1,500 jobs.
The company's operation will sit aside significant multinationals operating in Grange Castle such as Pfizer, Microsoft and Google.
‘World class’
"The Grange Castle Media Park will be a world-class facility. Its size and specification will help to propel Ireland into a major world-class player in the screen creative industries, creating thousands of long term and sustainable jobs for Dublin, and all over the country," a spokeswoman for Lens Media said.
Mr Morris and Mr Moloney had previously been seeking to develop a studio complex at the Poolbeg strategic development zone, the former Irish Glass Bottle site.
U2 singer Bono advocated for the project and lobbied former minister for the environment Alan Kelly, now the Labour Party leader, to support the studio. Actors Liam Neeson and Cillian Murphy also spoke in support of the project.
The facility, if it receives planning permission, will join other studios on the island of Ireland such as Ardmore and Ashford studios in Wicklow, Troy studios in Limerick and Harbour studios in Belfast.
