It’s been a decade since the Block last witnessed developers buying up multi-million euro homes in Dublin 4 only to demolish them and redevelop as apartments, but it looks like we may have come full circle.
Two houses on exclusive Herbert Park in Ballsbridge are set to be demolished under ambitious plans submitted by a company named Lordglen, owned by the McSharry and Kennedy building families – owners of the neighbouring Herbert Park Hotel.
The families bought 36 and 38 Herbert Park last year for a combined €6.2 million and now hope to replace them with two four-storey apartment buildings. In all, they will comprise 18 apartments (4 one-beds, 10 two-beds and 4 three-beds) and will extend to 3,388sqm (36,500sqft) in size.
The apartments blocks will include communal facilities such as a gym, media room, recreational room and a meeting room. The new development will have a valuable Herbert Park address, direct park views and is destined to become one of Dublin’s most coveted, and expensive, apartment schemes if planning is granted.
Plans have already been approved for the families’ new aparthotel on the former Cablelink site at Pembroke Place, located directly behind the two Herbert Park houses. That site was valued at €27 million at the height of the market, and later sold in 2013 to Gibraltar-based Pembroke Partners for just over €3 million, who subsequently resold it after a short stint of ownership.
Currently permission is granted for a 43 unit aparthotel on the site, however the families are now hoping to enlarge this to a 58 unit development, some 2,904sqm (31,250sqft) in size. The aparthotel and apartment developments will have a total of 38 car parking and 51 bicycle spaces at basement level, however they will have separate basement entrances.
The families’ decision to apply for planning permission for a residential apartment block, rather than using the full site for aparthotel uses, underlines the evident demand for luxury apartments in the Ballsbridge area. No doubt the decision has been fuelled by newly launched Lansdowne Place development nearby, where apartments are commanding as much as €6.5 million
