Grand vision for Pigeon House on Poolbeg Peninsula is shrunk way down – for now

The Pigeon House Hotel on the Poolbeg peninsula needs to be brought back into public use, councillors on the council’s South East Area Committee said on Monday.

The old Dublin City Council-owned property arose at the afternoon meeting when officials informed local councillors of a proposal to let some of its rooms to Celtic Anglian Water Limited.

That company operates the Ringsend Wastewater Treatment Plant, also on the peninsula, for Uisce Éirean. 

The council had let Celtic Anglian Water seven rooms in the three-storey hotel beside the Poolbeg Stacks – under a temporary monthly licence since July 2018, according to a report by Darach O’Connor, the council’s executive manager.

Now, O’Connor proposed that the company be granted a five-year short-term business letting of rooms.

The former hotel was originally built between 1793 and 1795, according to the council’s website.

In 2018, the council had owned the hotel and neighbouring former ESB power station, which sit on a seven-acre site, for about a decade.

It was planning to put out a call to developers who might be interested in leasing the site for “a wide range of uses including creative, technological, green, artistic and community uses”. 

The power station had been empty for at least 20 years, said Labour Councillor Dermot Lacey said at the time. “There have been various proposals over the years, but it needs a big project.”

It’s right on the beach with a harbour. “I mean, the potential is just absolutely enormous,” says Lacey.

The council put out the call for developers in January 2019. But in 2021, The Currency reported that the council had abruptly shut down the project.

From big ambitions to small

At the area committee meeting on Monday afternoon, independent Councillor Mannix Flynn said he needed more information on the council’s latest – much less ambitious – proposal to lease some of the rooms in the Pigeon House hotel.

He didn’t understand why the building was being divided up for short-term leases, he said. “There’s a great possibility of Dublin City Council themselves developing it.”

Celtic Anglian Water had been in the premises for a long time, Cathy Cassidy, a senior staff officer in the council’s Planning and Development department said. “They are just using a couple of floors. We’re just getting some money in.”

As part of the agreement, the company paid a monthly licence fee of €3,000, with the most recent one expiring on 30 April 2024, and the new five-year lease commencing from 1 May of that same year, O’Connor’s report to the area committee, dated 3 February said.

That licence fee goes towards the upkeep of the building, Cassidy told Flynn at the meeting. “But management do have plans for the long run, and they won’t be there forever. It’s just a short-term thing.”

They were getting this new licence agreement because they are going to pay for a significant upgrade of the building’s CCTV cameras, O’Connor said at the meeting.

According to the proposed agreement, the council will upgrade the CCTV, and Celtic Anglian Water will reimburse them for the €15,726.56 that those works will cost.

The council doesn’t have any immediate plans for it, O’Connor said. “So we decided to offer a five year short-term business lend.”

But Flynn was right, Labour Councillor Dermot Lacey said. “I’d love to see some sort of public use for this building.”

It is particularly important because the Poolbeg Strategic Development Zone is its next door neighbour. “We’re going to have nearly 15,000 people living down in that area,” Lacey said.

Nobody would want to see any long-term letting of the building which could potentially stop the council from bringing it back into public use, he said.

One of the terms in the new agreement states that the agreement can be terminated if either party gives six months prior notice, O’Connor said. “If we wanted to cut it short, we’ll have the option to do that.”

It wasn’t a problem if this was a short-term thing, Lacey said. “But you know, we are putting people in there and we should be looking to build something visionary in the future.”

Flynn asked for the granting of this licence to be deferred for a month while he sought more information from the council’s chief executive Richard Shakespeare.

There’s a great opportunity here to create something to coincide with the Glass Bottle site development, he said. “But equally, the neighbourhood itself is without many resources.”

If the council doesn’t renew the licence, the property will sit vacant, Cassidy said.

But the committee agreed to defer the item until its April meeting.