Glenveagh sells planned Premier Inn hotel at Dublin site for €70m

Property firm says 262-bedroom Premier Inn hotel sold to German-based Union Investment

Glenveagh chief executive Stephen Garvey and chief financial officer Michael Rice  publishing their annual results for 2019 at their offices on Merrion Square. Photograph: Alan Betson
Glenveagh chief executive Stephen Garvey and chief financial officer Michael Rice publishing their annual results for 2019 at their offices on Merrion Square. Photograph: Alan Betson

Glenveagh Properties has sold the planned 262-bedroom Premier Inn hotel at its Castleforbes development in the Dublin docklands to German-based Union Investment in a €70 million deal.

Construction of the Premier Inn hotel will begin next month and it is scheduled to be ready for business in autumn 2023.

It will be a key component of site which also includes 1,256 apartments, 12,545sq m of office space known as the Freight Building and a second 219-bedroom hotel on the junction of East Road.

Glenveagh said the transaction had been structured via a forward funding arrangement that will result in Union Investment taking ownership of the hotel. The hotel will be operated by UK-headquartered hotel group Whitbread under its Premier Inn brand, as was previously announced by Glenveagh.

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"We are delighted to partner with the hotel experts of Union Investment on this project," Glenveagh chief executive Stephen Garvey said.

“This marks the start of delivery of a significant development in the Docklands which will provide a sustainable mix of residential, hotel and office accommodation in this prime city centre location,” he said.

‘Wider masterplan’

“ The project forms part of a wider masterplan for our Dublin Docklands sites and is testament to our commitment to keeping sustainable development at the heart of everything we do,” he added.

This is third major Dublin hotel sale announced in the past two months.

Zetland Capital, a London-based private equity firm, bought Dublin's Morrison hotel in a deal announced last month. No price was disclosed but it was reported in March that the deal was expected to be worth more than €65 million.

The 157-bed Moxy Dublin City hotel, on Sackville Place just off O'Connell Street, was also sold in May by the Spitzer family's Midwest Holding group for €35 million to the MHL Hotel Collection.

Eoin Burke-Kennedy

Eoin Burke-Kennedy

Eoin Burke-Kennedy is Economics Correspondent of The Irish Times