Jury's Doyle is to invest €30 million developing a hotel at a site facing the main entrance to Croke Park after agreeing a lease with its owners, the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA).

The Dublin-listed hotel group and the GAA yesterday announced that Jury's was to build a four-star, 232-bedroom property on Jones' Road, immediately opposite the Hogan Stand entrance to the 80,000-seat stadium.

The GAA chose Jury's after interviewing a number of different hotel groups, the organisation's president, Mr Seán Kelly, said yesterday. It will lease the site to the hotel group for 34 years.

The property will be known as the Jury's Croke Park Hotel and is due to open late next summer. According to a statement issued by the hotel group yesterday, the cost of the development will be €30 million, or approximately €130,000 a room.

Builders McAleer and Rush, which the group uses on most of its Irish and UK developments, are the lead contractors.

The hotel plan originally met local opposition, but Mr Kelly yesterday said that this had been "essentially" sorted out. The parties had to make a number of modifications, and dropped a proposal to link the hotel and stadium by means of a footbridge over the road.

Along with the obvious market of fans attending All-Ireland Championship, National League and other competition games at the stadium, Jury's chief executive, Mr Pat McCann, yesterday said it would draw between 60 per cent to 70 per cent of its business from the corporate and leisure sectors.

This will be partly anchored by the conference facilities in Croke Park.