Manor Park Homebuilders has been refused planning permission by Dublin City Council for the highest buildings in Ireland as part of a massive commercial, residential and leisure Digital Hub development being dubbed "mini Manhattan".
The council said its unprecedented height would "seriously impact" on the identity, character and scale of the inner city.
It also said it would set a precedent "for the proliferation of developments of such excessive scale and would impact unacceptably on adjoining properties".
The focal point of the development - two slender glazed towers - would have been taller than the Spire on O'Connell Street and one of them, at 171 metres (564ft), would have be three times the height of Liberty Hall.
Designed by de Blacam and Meagher architects, the second tower would have been 124 metres (409ft) and would have comprised 32 storeys of offices.
In November, Manor Park Homebuilders bought the 2.5-acre site in Dublin 8 by tender from the State. Another developer, P Elliott & Co, acquired a further 3.1 acres.
Both sites sold for €118 million but the State accepted part-payment in the form of office buildings, reducing the cash payment to €72 million.
The proposal was for a 81,179sq m (873,803sq ft) development to front Thomas Street West, Crane Street and Rainsfort Street, and including 38,398sq m (413,312sq ft) of offices, a 360-bed hotel with 85 apart-hotel units overhead, 6,038sq m (64,992sq ft) of retail and café/restaurant space, a bar, public areas, 125 apartments and an educational resource centre.
The seven tallest blocks, which would have stood on a four-storey podium, were a mix of residential, offices and hotel, and would rise from 11 to 32 storeys. In addition, permission was also sought to change the use of VAT house No 7, a former Guinness facility, to office and bar use.
But the council said the public open space at a four-storey podium level "would represent an introverted and unjustified urban typology which would be at variance with the character of inner city Dublin which is primarily based on ground-based public streets and public space".
