The Ambassador on Dublin's Parnell Square, one of the oldest theatres in the State, is to be redeveloped as a new Dublin city library as part of the regeneration of Parnell Square.
Dublin City Council has decided to relocate the central city library from the nearby Ilac shopping centre despite having decided just two years ago to retain the Ambassador building as an entertainment venue.
The council intends to pay €1.2 million annual rent for the new library in addition to initial fit-out and tax-related costs of up to €8 million.
The current Dublin central library in the Ilac centre has been in need of refurbishment and expansion for more than a decade, the council says.
The council's library development programme published in 1996 found that the Ilac library was badly located and had inadequate facilities despite having opened just 10 years earlier.
The city council had hoped to redevelop the library within the Ilac complex as part of plans by Irish Life to rebuild the Ilac Centre in 1998. When these plans failed to materialise the council initially intended to refurbish the existing facilities, but ultimately decided to seek a new site for the library.
A framework plan for the complete redevelopment of Parnell Square, published in 2005, recommended that the Ambassador be developed as a "cabaret type theatre" where dinner would be served with a show which was "perhaps on a traditional Irish music theme".
The €80 million-plus plans for the square, which were to be phased in over a 15-year basis, also included an extension to the Hugh Lane Gallery, the creation of a museum of literature and the opening of Rotunda Gardens to the public.
Initial work has begun with the creation of a new gate into the Garden of Remembrance at the northern end of the square, however the Ambassador redevelopment, which had been one of the later projects of the framework plan, is now likely to be one to the first major schemes to be completed.
The Ambassador Theatre was opened in 1767 to raise funds for the hospital. Originally called the Round Room, or Rotundo, the theatre became a cinema and was renamed the Ambassador in the 1940s. In recent years the cinema has closed and the theatre has been used as a music venue.
The Ambassador is owned by the hospital but is run by the Millennium Theatre Company on a long-term lease.
The city council will sublet the building from Millennium for an annual rent of €1.2 million.
