Howth closures - wtf?

DublinWriter

Drove through Howth village today looking for somewhere to eat.

I was surprised at the amount of closures in the village - The Baily hotel was closed, along with the adjoining off-licence, as were the wine bar and restaurant on the opposite side of the road.

When did all these businesses close their doors?!?

Benjy

From yesterdays Sunday Business Post

Receiver is appointed to Howth hotel
Sunday, July 05, 2009 -
A hotel overlooking Howth harbour in Dublin has gone into receivership after a move by the company’s bank, writes Ian Kehoe.

AIB has installed a receiver over the Baily Court Hotel on Main Street in Howth, after becoming concerned about multimillion euro loans advanced to the business.

Acting on foot of a charge over the property, AIB appointed accountant Jim Luby as receiver over Balmain Inn, the holding company behind the property. He plans to sell the hotel in the coming weeks.

The Baily Court traded successfully for a number of years, but struggled in recent times because of increased competition in the area. The hotel has opened on an intermittent basis in recent months, but the receiver has now shut down the premises.

The hotel consists of a 20 bedrooms, an off-licence, a nightclub, a number of bars and a restaurant. The business is owned by Dublin businessman Darragh Heagney, who has interests in a number of other pubs around Dublin.

The owners had commissioned reports on redeveloping the site, but the plan did not materialise because of the economic deterioration.

Balmain Inn owed €6.1 million to financial institutions at the end of June 2007, and had losses of €1.1 million, according to its latest accounts.

EASYNEWS

Whatever happened to this hotel ? Is it operating as a hotel ?
I had my wedding reception there forty years ago when it was known as the Royal Hotel.
I would like if anyone could let me know if is now open. Maybe it has a new name.
Thanks

Marcus_Crassus

EASYNEWS wrote: »

Whatever happened to this hotel ? Is it operating as a hotel ?
I had my wedding reception there forty years ago when it was known as the Royal Hotel.
I would like if anyone could let me know if is now open. Maybe it has a new name.
Thanks

The one mentioned in the first two posts is The Royal Hotel, so yes it closed a few years ago.

Ray von

The hotel is closed and the building has been derelict for a number of years. Over the years it has had few different owners and name changes from the Royal Hotel -> Baily Court Hotel -> Baily hotel. The last owners ran into trouble and had to close.

Back in the Royal hotel & Baily Court Hotel days the hotel was a great spot for showbands, gigs, weddings. When sold and renamed as the Baily hotel they tarted it up and introduced a fancy bar (bar mizu). This was the death of the place and it lost all character.

The last owner bought for 3 million euro in 2003 but most recently AIB sold the building for 900k. The plan is to turn it into retail units and apartments.

Hollister11

Sorry to drag this up, but is it true the Hilton bought this a year ago ?

tricky D

No, it was local-ish consortium and the plan seems to be some apartments and ground floor commercial units. Nothing has happened yet.

Hollister11

Will The Bailey Court ever reopen ? The last i heard it was bought by The Hilton Hotel group.

neris

Meant to be reopning as a hotel. Been sold

Atlantic Dawn

The planning permission was approved for 4 retail units at ground level and apartments above them.

whiskeyman

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

The planning permission was approved for 4 retail units at ground level and apartments above them.

Well, at least one of the retail units won't be a Starbucks...


Or will it?

:pac:

PlayByTheRules

An Bord Pleanála yesterday approved planning permission for 157 apartments, 6 duplex units and ancillary commercial developments at this location. This one has morphed into a big scheme but the amount of vacant land was never going to escape use with the current housing crisis. If you add the few hundred units planned for the old Techrete site (if it goes ahead) Howth is going to see a big jump in population. Not the worst thing as if there's more people living up there they might get better services which are lacking - petrol station, good-sized supermarket etc.

tricky D

That will very likely be ending up in the High Court. ABP have totally ignored EU Directive Requirements as they did with St Annes which is why that was thrown out. The presence of bats and birds (incl. sand martens, oystercatchers and curlews - all under threat) requires Environmental Assessments under Habitats ad Birds Directives. They have also ignored the Coastal Management Plan. The site absolutely needs development and locals are pragmatic on this but the scale and scope of the current accepted proposal is a case of jamming as many shoeboxes in as possible and putting the structural stability of the whole area in jeopardy. 164 units - up from 23 in the previous granted planning, 2014 - is just way too many. Something around a third of that and more than just shoeboxes would be appropriate and still give the developers a good yield.

As for services being attracted, that does not necessarily follow. The Techcrete proposal has already resulted in Beshoff Motors and Bosco's garage having to move out, as well as the garden centre which was on the old Teelings site, formerly a petrol station. The banks are long gone, as is the 2nd mini-sized Spar shop and the credit union recently went too. I just can't see that trend reversing any time.

PlayByTheRules

I see your point now on the # of units. Looks like greed has taken over here. No reason why the site can't be developed at a profit with much less units.
Regarding those businesses which have moved out I am not sure the correct terms would be 'having to move out'. I have a feeling the Garden Centre wasn't really making any money and it was a rip-off so it was probably wound down due to being a poorly run business. I think Beshoff Motors will be better off in a busier area, Howth doesn't need car dealerships, it needs more simple things - a supermarket and a petrol station + a bank as you say. I would agree that it doesn't always follow but with the volume of extra units in the pipeline I suspect business owners will try to take advantage. Portmarnock would be a good case in point, a lot of businesses are setting up again in the village (including. the new LIDL) which are likely doing so due to the increased housing that is going in around the back end of the village / train station.

tricky D

Beshoffs, Bosco and the Garden Centre did all have to move out from Techcrete. Beshoffs and Bosco, who managed to squeeze an extra year from the developers, were at their best possible local location for their high end market /from the horse's mouth. The Garden Centre was indeed over priced but is still running well enough /horse's mouth again. And now that Blackbanks Garden Centre is closed its market has increased.

Don't get me wrong, we'd love for services to come back but the trend is firmly in the other direction and can't see any evidence of that changing.

neris

Heard rumours that deer park was sold recently but no mention of the castle was part of any rumoured sale

tricky D

Not quite sold. Long lease to a Canadian group. Precious few further details though. Needs the investment and management badly.

neris

tricky D wrote: »

Not quite sold. Long lease to a Canadian group. Precious few further details though. Needs the investment and management badly.

Big time. Prime location for a well run hotel and resort. They did a big modern extension few years ago and then shut up shop

eviltimeban

It, and Howth Castle, have been sold to Tetrarch. They plan to reopen it as a luxury destination. Be good if they did something with the castle and grounds too, to make it more appealing to tourists. Be also good if they put a bit of money into the transport museum.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/commercial-property/470-acre-howth-castle-sold-to-irish-investment-group-tetrarch-1.3652116

cbreeze

They also own Ireland's Eye. Wonder will the boat rides continue to operate.

neris

was out cycling last night and came down through the village onto the harbour road. il panorma was quiet but the newer place slighlty further down (juke or duke i think) was closed but was a decent enough crowd in findlaters for a thursday. cycled past there before in the evenings and the place would be empty

eviltimeban

Looks like permission has been granted to build more houses than initially proposed at the Techrete site:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/more-than-500-apartments-approved-for-howth-site-1.4225356

The previous schemes were for less than half the number of homes for which developer Pat Crean now has permission. Locals had warned a previous application for 200 homes would cause severe traffic congestion on the main road to the village and would amount to over-development of the site.

So 200 would've been too many but now they can build 500?? While I agree something needs to be done with that old site, it'll make traffic to Howth unbearable, with a knock on effect of building up traffic along the coast road through Sutton Cross.

neris