One Berkley court -132m Tower

This “letter” by Dunne appeared in the Times last week. Quite odd really for a CEO to be issuing such broadsides – and unneccessary I would have thought for the IT to publish it all in it’s total (and painful) entireity. I am posting one reply to it for balance at the end.

@Irish Times, letters page, Friday, August 24, 2007 wrote:

DEVELOPMENT OF SITES AT BALLSBRIDGE

Madam, – It is a widely held belief that a newspaper should be properly judged by the fairness and accuracy of its Editorials. Over the years when reading your newspaper, it has been customary for me to first turn to the leader article and, indeed, customary to believe that it had been written without bias and with a level of fairness, understanding and expertise.

The number of grossly inaccurate and misleading articles which have been written over the past two years about my company and the Jurys/Berkeley Court site by now outnumber the number of rugby fans who claim to have been in Thomond Park when Munster beat the All-Blacks in 1978.

However, the leader article “Changes in Dublin 4” in The Irish Timesof Saturday, August 18th, that blamed me and my company for the decisions made and actions taken by a then public, and now private company (Jurys Doyle Group), two years ago was so vindictive, misleading and inaccurate that it trumps them all.

Your Editorial began by blaming my company, Mountbrook Homes, for the recent closure of Jurys and the Berkeley Court Hotel. You may recall that in June 2005 the owners of Jurys Hotel Ballsbridge, being Jurys plc, offered for sale by tender Jurys Hotel Ballsbridge. It was an express condition of the sale of the property, by the inclusion of a restrictive covenant on the title, that no other hotel could be developed and operated by the purchaser of this site.

Jurys plc at that time operated seven other hotels in Dublin city and was obviously endeavouring to minimise future competition.

On acquiring the Berkeley Court some three months later, Mountbrook Homes successfully negotiated the removal of the restrictive covenant and the right to build a hotel on the combined site, if we so choose. It is our intention to include a hotel in the proposed redevelopment of Jurys/Berkeley Court. Given that your newspaper has not seen our plans I am amazed you chose to make the false assumption that no hotel would be built on this site again. In fact, I am amazed that you have chosen to make any comment at all on our plans, given that such commentary is akin to judging a beauty competition in the dark.

The current owners of the Jurys Doyle Group are the Doyle and Beatty families who took Jurys plc private in 2005. Jurys Doyle still control and own the operating companies for both Jurys and the Berkeley Court Hotel.

The decision to close both hotels was taken by Jurys plc and in respect of which neither any of my companies nor I had any hand, act or part.

My company only takes ownership and control of Jurys Ballsbridge on September 6th with no residents, no employees, and the contents from the doors of the bedrooms to the elevators removed – in essence a carcass.

Prior to Jurys Hotel closing this month, we sought to acquire, intact, the full contents having been approached by other hotel operators who had an interest in keeping the hotel in operation until development commences. The owners refused to sell us the contents for reasons only known to themselves.

I have, however, successfully managed to purchase those contents which were for sale in the Berkeley Court and over the next couple of months will investigate the viability of keeping that hotel open for the foreseeable future. Ownership and control of the Berkeley Court does not pass to our company until October 8th.

Your article also stated that Jurys and the Berkeley Court are two thriving, profitable hotels, a statement obviously made without any knowledge of the profitability of these properties. In 2005, Jurys plc, in the best interests of their shareholders, decided to dispose of these two hotels. I fully understand why the company decided on this course of action.

Good economics is based on the return of capital and the reason these hotels were sold is that Jurys plc were no longer realising an adequate return on capital deployed in relation to both properties. The “ruthlessness” you refer to in your article is also hypocritical given that The Irish Timesitself embarked on a controversial rationalisation programme over the past four years for similar reasons, namely: disposing of its head office – a Dublin landmark]

@Irish Times, letters page, Tuesday, August 28, 2007 wrote:

DEVELOPMENT IN BALLSBRIDGE

Madam, – Sean Dunne’s letter of August 24th set a worrying precedent: it took up half the page and ran to a couple of thousand words. This is over-development of the worst kind. What about the higher density you regularly encourage from your letter-writers? This is epistolary sprawl.

Who in your department fast-tracked it through? Have we no right of appeal?

On a less serious note, I hope he builds better than he writes. Ouch. – Yours, etc,

DAVID P JAMESON, York Road, Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin.

At 20 semi-d’s to the acre, that is 27 acres, leaving out the shopping space, cinema, offices, embassy and so on. Picture 27 acres of semi-d housing in your mind.

I went up there at lunchtime and had a mooch around. the exhibition is sparse and the 3ds a little amateurish but the little tv documentaries that accompany it are worth looking at.

On the whole I was impressed and convinced by the scheme (Duncan Stewart is in favour of it in that increasing urban density will decrease suburban sprawl and reduce car use etc)

Whether their claim to be carbon neutral in 10 years is acheivable or not is debatable but the intention is good.

There are 180 apartments in the tower so the majority are in the lower buildings. The tower itself is a twin wall so no balconies which is something that DCC might look at under their new guidelines. I’m sure there’s a wind report in the EIS that gives good reason. The inner wall of the twin wall can be opened up and there are some louvres on the outer facade but no wintergardens as such.

The office component contravenes the zoning but at 15% of the overall development I think they’re looking at it as a sacrificial lamb.

They have thoroughly embraced the need for larger apartments and family living, with the average apartment size at 125sqm and 3bedroom apts at 44% of the mix. 1 beds take up only 10%.

There was a bunch of aul ones talking to the press but I had to leave when it became like an episode of Kilroy

Fair play to Mr. Dunne. Ballsy move. It’s a very well thought out venture that puts the ball firmly in DCC’s court.

I actually enjoyed this letter too, agreed with lots, found some of it self-seving, but overall I enjoyed reading it and felt afterwards I understood Sean Dunne’s view point better, surely the point of letters like this.

Lots of people objected to the length, but it left me feeling that it is middle length letters that are boring, I thought they should introduce a policy that letters over say three lines should be forced to go on for a side of A4.

*cough* im sure it will be built;)

Dublin developer Sean Dunne has unveiled his long-awaited plans for his Ballsbridge estate in Dublin which controversially includes a 37-storey tower.

The founding partner of Mountbrook Homes submitted a planning application to Dublin City Council today for the 7 acre Jurys Berkeley Court site in the exclusive area of Dublin.

His mixed-use scheme comprises residential and retail space, including an underground mall, an embassy complex that could accommodate the relocation of some of the 29 embassies in Ballsbridge, an office block, a 232 room luxury hotel, and an ice rink. There will also be a crèche for 150 children and a ‘cultural quarter’ including a European Centre for Culture.

The centrepiece of the scheme is a 132m tower, which will be known as One Berkeley Court, and is ‘sculpted like a diamond’. The scheme has been designed by Denmark’s Henning Larsen Architects, which won the brief in an architectural competition last year.

Dunne bought the site in 2005, at €54m an acre (£36.5m an acre), in what was, at the time, a record price for land in Ireland.

Sean Dunne, managing director of Mountbrook, who has dubbed his estate the future ‘Knightsbridge of Dublin’, said: ‘Ballsbridge has for a long time been wrongly portrayed by some as a village, whereas in actual fact it is a national centre, in that it houses the home of Irish rugby, the headquarters of AIB (the largest bank in Ireland), 1.5m sq ft of offices, the Royal Dublin Society and is home to 29 embassies.’

It is the second major planning application to be submitted in Ballsbridge. Earlier this week Irish developer Ray Grehan submitted a planning application for a €600m (£406m) development – Number One Ballsbridge – next to Dunne’s site.

Both applications, which seek to significantly increase the density of the site and introduce a tower in a low rise area will be closely watched. Dublin’s planning authorities have historically been averse to tall developments except in certain areas of the city – such as the docklands.

yeah just seen it very informative- might be a small bit ambitious-theres a 15 stroey tower proposed right beside it and it looks well/has he not had a tower rejected already?

@AndrewP wrote:

Actually, if the Ballsbridge site is 11 acres, that doesn’t seem a huge space saving. I presume services for what would be a village of up to 2,000 people would take up another huge chunk of land though. So you’re talking about no new land being used as opposed to what? 40 acres?
I live in a low-density, underpopulated, relatively central area and wouldn’t have a huge problem with a scheme like this nearby. But I’m a northsider and take a more pragmatic view of these things…:)

it’s 7 acres

Of course the well-heeled residents of this development would never live in a 3-bed semi anyway.
And they’ll still maintain their country homes to boot

Can this be merged with the other thread?