The owner of Dartmouth Square park, who is embroiled in a row with Dublin City Council over the site, has put it up for sale.
Noel O'Gara said he is seeking in the region of €100 million for the park, whose freehold title he bought for €10,000 in 2005.
The Athlone businessman has been embroiled in a high-profile row with the city council and residents of the area over the square, which he says he wants to turn into a car park and apartment complex.
The two-acre park is zoned as an amenity and open space area, and Dublin City Council has placed a compulsory purchase order on it. It is also the subject of a High Court injunction preventing its use as a car park.
Mr O'Gara now has a caravan in the park from which he is selling tiles. The city council has also threatened planning enforcement proceedings over the tile business.
Yesterday Mr O'Gara said he would be seeking offers similar to the €50 million an acre which was paid for the Burlington Hotel site. He said Allied Auctioneers in Terenure would handle the matter and he claimed there would be considerable interest in the site. "There's lots of Irish men who are very wealthy today, who may say this is a chance to make €50 million," he said.
He said the €100,000 offered to him by the city council in relation to the compulsory purchase order was "ridiculous and insulting". "You'd nearly pay that for a grave in Glasnevin," he said.
Mr O'Gara said the money he was offered for the park was in marked contrast to sites which the council itself is selling.
"It is ridiculous that a local authority can offer its own little bit of land for sale for several millions and then try to compulsorily purchase land for buttons. That's just communism."
Residents in the red-brick houses around the park were reluctant to speak publicly about the latest development, claiming that Mr O'Gara's initiative was simply an attempt to gain publicity.
One resident, Louise Horgan, said Mr O'Gara was "just attention-seeking". "I think he's just seeking publicity to try and get under the council's skin."
She said residents were no longer paying great attention to Mr O'Gara and were ignoring his claims that people were trespassing. "People are using the park anyway," she said. "It was packed at lunch, and more people will use it as the days get longer and warmer."
The land on which Dartmouth Square is located was owned by the Darley family since the early 19th century, before Mr O'Gara bought it two years ago.