Developer Noel Smyth to lodge plans for nine-storey 245-room hotel at Arnotts in Dublin

The hotel scheme involves a two-storey element with set-backs over Arnotts and a three-storey element with setbacks over the department store’s multi-storey carpark.

The hotel scheme will involve the demolition and decommissioning of the top three open air levels of the carpark resulting in the removal of 145 car spaces.

The lodging of the plans comes 10 months after Mr Smyth’s firm lodged plans for a 12-storey 159-unit ‘build to rent’ scheme on the same site at Arnotts.

That scheme involved the construction of a 12-storey over-basement element fronting Williams’ Lane, a five-storey element over the multi-storey carpark and a two-storey element over the Arnott’s store.

That proposal also involved the removal of the top three floor levels of the carpark.

Earlier this year, Dublin City Council requested further information on the scheme and the applicants earlier this month sought a six-month extension in which to lodge the new information.

Four years ago in October 2018, Mr Smyth secured permission for a nine-storey, 257-bedroom hotel on the same site and with no substantial works on that scheme advanced, planning permission will have now lapsed necessitating the new application.

That scheme attracted two objections and the support of Fáilte Ireland with the tourism agency telling the council the hotel “would be a valuable addition to the accommodation stock in Dublin and would go some way to addressing the accommodation challenge being faced by the city”.

Planning consultant Tom Phillips told Dublin City Council that the 2018 proposal “will facilitate the provision of a state of the art accommodation facility, whilst significantly improving the character of the area”.

Mr Phillips said the hotel scheme “represents a very positive proposal for Middle Abbey Street and William Lane responding positively to the site’s existing context”.

The planning consultant contended that the proposed development “can be comfortably accommodated on the site and…it is important to highlight that the development site is strategically located in the city centre on an under-utilised site”.