Harry Crosbie tries again to get planning permission for hotel

Businessman Harry Crosbie is making another bid to secure the green light for a hotel project in Dublin’s Docklands.

Mr Crosbie’s Misery Hill Entertainment Ltd is expected to lodge plans with Dublin City Council shortly for a 34-bedroom hotel at 9 Hanover Quay and the adjacent Grand Canal Dock.

Mr Crosbie’s firm is seeking to change the use of his home at 9 Hanover Quay into a mixed-use cafe/bar with a soundproof music entertainment room and a 34-bedroom hotel.

The proposal also seeks to demolish a conservatory on site and replace it with a building attached to the protected stone malthouse building with a two-storey extension above the existing roofline.

The proposed development falls within the North Lotts & Grand Canal Dock strategic development area.

Crosbie House at 9 Hanover Quay – bought for €18,000 32 years ago – is a listed building.

Mr Crosbie set up Misery Hill Entertainment Ltd just last month, where he and his wife, Rita, are directors of the company.

The move to seek planning permission comes five years after Dublin City Council refused Mr Crosbie planning permission for a 19-bedroom luxury hotel at 9 Hanover Quay due to a dispute over free public access to his planned hotel’s waterfront.

The council refused planning permission after Mr Crosbie refused to allow such access.

In a request for further information, the council asked Mr Crosbie to explore the possibility of maximising public access to the wharf at his future hotel.

In response, Mr Crosbie said in a letter that if the council “insists on an open dock, then I would prefer to abandon the project and stay as we are at present”.

Mr Crosbie, who helped transform Dublin’s docklands over the years with the construction of the Point concert venue, now the 3Arena, and the Bord Gáis theatre, said: “Allowing free access would be chaotic and dangerous and would attract anti-social behaviour to this very narrow area. It can be unpleasant and nasty.”

In the letter, Mr Crosbie added: “It would be impossible to run a business with huge crowds of young people regularly sunbathing right outside our windows, as regularly happens around the basin on summer days.”

Elsewhere in Dublin, Mr Crosbie is seeking planning permission for a 182-room four-star “rock and room” hotel on Vicar Street, next to his Vicar Street entertainment venue.

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