Plans to be lodged for new hotel at Dublin's College Green

Gordon Deegan

Plans are to be lodged for a new six-storey 97-bedroom hotel for College Green in Dublin 2.

In the planning application to be lodged with Dublin City Council in the next number of days, businessman Deepak Sharma’s Figs Properties Ltd is seeking planning permission for the hotel at 30-33 College Green and also fronting onto Suffolk Street.

The published statutory planning notice states that building at 30-33 College Green is a protected structure and the hotel development includes a two storey extension to provide a part-4 and part-6 building.

The hotel development is to also include a new six storey extension. The hotel scheme is to also comprise a spa with treatment rooms, a gym along with the 97 bedrooms from first floor level.

The hotel is to also include a cafe, restaurant and bar at ground level.

The ultimate owner of Figs Properties is Deepak Sharma who sold a majority 59 per cent share in his Dublin based Vita Actives, to Dairygold in June 2023.

Now part of the Dairygold group Vita Actives supplies high value nutraceutical ingredients and nutrition solutions to more than 400 global customers.

The final set of accounts for Vita Actives Ltd before it became part of the Dairygold group show that revenues increased by 39 per cent to €41.3 million as pre-tax profits increased by 23 per cent to €7.45 million in the 12 months to the end of August 2023.

Separately a long established Dublin hotel, the Sandman Hotel Group owned Portmarnock Hotel & Golf Links has secured planning permission from Fingal County Council for an outdoor fresh water swimming pool on the hotel grounds.

A planning report lodged with the application states that since the Sandman Group purchase in 2019, the group has invested considerably in the hotel and golf course facilities.

The planning report states that the Sandman Group’s intention is to now look towards upgrading the hotel facilities that will allow it to provide unique ancillary amenity facilities within the hotel complex and “the swimming pool is the next phase of these proposed works”.

The RW Nowlan report states that the proposed development “aims to enhance the amenity offering and leisure facilities available to hotel guests”.

The report stated that the new outdoor pool facilities "are modest in scale, sensitively designed, and positioned to integrate seamlessly into the existing landscape character for the site”.