With the news that Dublin City Council has received around 200 objections and submissions to developer Sean Dunne's plans for a mixed-use development with a 37-storey tower at the Jurys/Berkeley Court site in Ballsbridge, the council has also received around 80 submissions and objections to a proposal by another developer for an adjoining site.
Ray Grehan, managing director of Glenkerrin Homes, is looking to build a mixed-use office and residential development with a 15-storey element at the former UCD Veterinary College site beside the Jurys/Berkeley Court site.
Grehan has proposed a 40,000sq m (430,000sq ft) development named "Number 1 Ballsbridge" with 109 apartments for the site.
Among the objectors is Sandymount Avenue Residents Association, Shrewsbury Park Management Ltd, the Irish Georgian Society and Lucinda Creighton TD.
However, not all the submissions are opposed to the development. Developer Sean Dunne, who also owns Hume House to the west of the vet college site in addition to the Jurys/Berkeley Court site, wrote a letter supporting the development through RPS planning consultants.
Among the objectors is the Irish Georgian Society which says the proposed 15-storey building will have an impact on the character of the Residential Conservation Area.
It says the area bounded by Pembroke Road to the north and Clyde Road to the south "is one of the most significant Victorian districts in Dublin laid out by the Pembroke Estate in the latter half of the 19th century".
Lucinda Creighton TD says Ballsbridge is not one of the areas identified in an independent high-rise study as a suitable location for tall buildings.
She says Dublin city councillors emphatically rejected "the intensification of development and rezoning of land in Ballsbridge" when they voted against the local area plan in June and when they subsequently passed motions recommending the council reject Sean Dunne's and Ray Grehan's plans as being too high.
RPS, on behalf of Sean Dunne's Mountbrook Homes, made a submission in support of the development saying the uses would complement those proposed on his site and his vision for the Jurys site "as a new world class urban quarter". Grehan is looking to build a residential tower which would overlook a newly created square in the centre of the development and there would be three office buildings, including a glazed eight-storey headquarters with an atrium fronting onto Shelbourne Road.
The highest street-facing building would be a nine-storey office block facing onto Pembroke Road.
A new street, New Pembroke Street, would link Shelbourne Road and Pembroke Road, and there would be cafés, 2,787sq m (30,000sq ft) of speciality shops and 18,580sq m (200,000sq ft) of offices. Grehan paid €171.5 million for the site in 2005.
