Dun Laoghaire comes with the news that THE OLD School Hall Hostel, at Eblana Avenue, Dun Laoghaire, is to be demolished to make way for an apartment and office development under plans lodged with Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council. The Old School House was bought by the current owners, David Hicks and Kevin Hegarty, from the Christian Brothers eight years ago and they operated it as a hostel.

The plan envisages a mixed development with 12,000 sq ft of office space and 67 apartments, although the number of apartments may be scaled back slightly.

The application is for two six-storey blocks, one fronting on to Eblana Avenue with offices at ground-floor and apartments overhead, the other a stepped apartment block to the rear. There will also be some element of underground car-parking with the scheme.

The cost of the apartments, which will be mostly two-bedroom and three-bedroom units, has not yet been set but comparisons with the £350 to £400 a sq ft achieved at the Pavilion centre would not be out of consideration, says Mr Hicks.

At £350 a sq ft, an 800 sq ft two-bedroom unit would cost £280,000. There will be six "top floor" apartments with two "super penthouses".

The finish is to be of a high standard in keeping with recent developments in the area. "People who want to live in apartments in Dun Laoghaire generally are not short of money, so there is no point in scrimping on finishings," said David Hicks.

If planning is granted, work would not start until June of next year, with the first apartments ready for occupation by summer of 2002.

By that time the Pavilion apartment development, with its theatre and leisure facilities, should have brought a good deal of life into the town centre in the evenings. Development of the Dun Laoghaire marina should also have started, and the potential for the town from about a thousand moorings in the harbour will be considerable.