Dublin City Council has given the go-ahead for a massive apartment and hotel complex on the site of Clancy Barracks, behind Heuston Station.
Florence Properties and Chanterwork Properties have been given planning permission to build almost 900 apartments and a 200-room hotel as part of a redevelopment of the 19th-century barracks. The accommodation will be provided in 45 blocks ranging in size from one to seven storeys, with some nine-storey elements and a hotel building of 10 to 15 storeys.
Three-quarters of the existing 42 listed buildings will be demolished to make way for the new development, as well as the existing boundary wall along South Circular Road. A further 11 will be refurbished, although parts of them will be demolished and removed.
The application, one of the largest to come before the planning authorities, was twice referred back to the developers last year for further information.
In a decision issued just before Christmas, the council granted permission subject to 27 conditions. These include requirements that the developers provide for an "appropriate-sized" primary school and a large supermarket to go with the project, and provide public access from the development to Heuston Station.
Florence will have to pay more than €21.8 million in development levies to the council and create a riverside park along the Liffey which must be opened before any apartments are occupied.
The planners have also told the company to drop plans for 90 apartments in one block, and to submit plans for the provision of social and affordable housing as part of the development.
At least half of the housing units will have to exceed a minimum floor space of 80sq m, 25 per cent will have to be bigger than 90sq m and 15 per cent will have to exceed 100sq m in size.
Florence Properties, which bought the site from the Department of Defence in 2002 for more than €25 million, is fully owned by Florence Properties Jersey, which in turn is owned by a trust controlled by the family of David Kennedy, an Irish-born property developer active in London.
Clancy Barracks lies close to the Phoenix Park and adjoins Heuston Station. The land was originally offered to the council for social housing, but this deal broke down and it was sold by tender to Florence Properties.
Originally known as Islandbridge Barracks, it was taken over by the Army in December 1922 and renamed in 1942 in memory of Peadar Clancy, a republican prisoner shot dead on November 21st, 1920.