Aer Lingus to reveal €800m airport site plan

Maskhadov

Aer Lingus to reveal €800m airport site plan
Arthur Beesley, Senior Business Correspondent
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/finance/2005/1022/1731422940BZAERLINGUS.html

The Aer Lingus board will discuss plans for an €800 million redevelopment of its 14½-acre site at Dublin Airport at a meeting next Thursday.

In anticipation of a positive response from the directors, the airline is ready to move immediately to seek planning permission from Fingal County Council.

Included in the plans are proposals for two hotels, office blocks and a conference centre on a site facing the airport terminal that is currently occupied by the Aer Lingus head office.

This building would be knocked down as part of the plans and Aer Lingus would need alternative office accommodation within the airport complex before the site becomes available.

Also included will be space for an underground station, even though no decision has yet been taken by the Government on construction of a Metro service between the airport and central Dublin.

The scheme embraces 160,000 sq m. It includes multi-storey car parks for 6,600 cars, a 400-room five-star hotel, a 300-room four-star hotel, an aparthotel, a leisure centre and airport-related retail space.

An Aer Lingus spokeswoman said only that "no decision has been made on whether the airline will apply for planning permission".

However, separate sources indicated that the directors are scheduled to receive a "presentation on Dublin airport development" at the meeting.

Preparations within the organisation for a planning application are well advanced.

Aer Lingus is being advised by the project management firm 4 Front and the architectural firm Henry J Lyons & Partners, whose designs for the development have appeared on the architecture website, archiseek.com.

The airline has control of the airport site under the terms of a 65-year lease from the former Aer Rianta, now the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA). It also has an option to renew this lease for another 30 years.

Fingal could take up to 18 months to sanction the plans, although some airline sources believe that officials in the council are well-disposed to the initiative.

The attitude of the Dublin Airport Authority to the proposed development is not yet known. Its stance may be influenced by the inclusion of hotels in the Aer Lingus plans. The DAA owns the Great Southern Hotel in the airport, one of the few bright spots in the State-owned hotel group, and its business might suffer if competition emerges. Informed sources in Aer Lingus believe the property plan presents obvious opportunities to realise significant profits for the cash-strapped airline. With part-privatisation again on the agenda, if only after the next general election, some sources believe the directors are likely to push ahead quickly with any plan that would increase the company's net value.

It is not yet clear how Aer Lingus will pay for the project. One funding option is to co-develop the site with a property development group. The airline would issue a tender under EU procurement rules in this scenario.

Such a partner would put forward most of the money for the development but share the profits with Aer Lingus on the basis that the airline provides the site.

Another option for the airline is to withdraw from the project altogether by selling on its interest in the site, or part of its interest, once planning permission is granted. Some informed sources estimate that the site with full planning could be worth €145-€217.5 million at a price of €10-€15 million per acre.

A further option is to enter a leaseback agreement with the DAA, which would, in turn, develop the site.

However, the authority's high level of debt and its requirement for money to fund a new airport terminal suggests that this is less likely.



© The Irish Times

Pretty impressive IMO. If this ever sees the light of day it will make Dublin Airport look almost modern:p

Some more discussion at http://www.archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=4364

morlan

Sure looks impressive

BuffyBot

Definitely looking good. They must be selling an awful lot of hot breakfasts these days

murphaph

DAA won't be happy will they? All those car parking spaces that they won't be able to charge for. This is Ireland though-that rndering will never happen, som watered down red brick version without the fancy stuff will be built instead. This is the land of 'plans' and 'feasability studies' and not the land of 'doing something'.

Maskhadov

God only knows if it will ever see the light of day but it does look very modern and awesome.

What building will this replace in Dublin airport and where will it go does anyone know ?

BuffyBot

What building will this replace in Dublin airport

It's to be built on the site of the current Aer Lingus building was my reading of it.

saobh_ie

It's proposed to be built on the existing Aer Lingus Head Office building lot, and if they did expand into an airport parking area they'd need to pay the DAA for those lands, money up front I think they'd grab it in a second. They desperatly need cash now since the regulator decided only to up the airport charges to 6.14 instead of 7.50. Which is a disaster, I'd pay an extra E2.50 on every flight if it meant in a few years I'd be able to use a modern airport with a capacity that meets demand instead of this 2million over capacity thing we have now.

And we're all sitting around expecting a new terminal, runway, apron, a couple of piers, road network and an extended multi storey carpark. Not gonna happen now.

So is this a wise development course for Aerlingus? DAA planned to be able to meet demand in 2012, with all this work. Obviously its not going to happen now, so is it worthwhile for AL to do all this while the terminals and roads are still a bottle neck?

And they've put the train station in the wrong place, its supposed to be across the road under the carpark. Although the goverment are never going to build that are they.

Looks the business though.

ishmael whale

murphaph wrote:

This is the land of 'plans' and 'feasability studies' and not the land of 'doing something'.

Of course some things do get done. At present, the focus of Government aviation policy seems to be to use up our international political capital in an effort to get the ludicrous Shannon stopover extended for a few years.

http://www.examiner.ie/pport/web/ireland/Full_Story/did-sg3HW3TduYcdIsgTbBP-2fa91M.aspTHE Government has agreed to end the Shannon stopover with the US authorities, it confirmed last night.

Talks to decide a phasing out period ended without agreement yesterday but will continue over the next few weeks.

“We are meeting specifically to discuss a phasing out period as we do not want to pull the carpet out on day one,” said a spokesperson for Transport Minister Martin Cullen. The Government wants a phasing out period of between two to three years to begin when the EU completes negotiations with the US on a new open skies agreement.....

Victor

Hmmm, while I understand the reasoning behind them exploiting an underused site, why is an airline getting into non-core businesses?

Remember when Aer Lingus ran: airline, aircraft maintainence, recruitment company, computer company, hospital in Baghdad, ground handling in Heathrow ......

BuffyBot

why is an airline getting into non-core businesses?

I don't think they are. I'd imagine they would lease out the Hotels/surplus space etc to others, then enjoy the bushels of cash.

Bluetonic

These plans are old plans which Henry J Lyons & Partners put up on their website after they revamped it a few weeks ago. The plans and designs are around 5 years old.

The DAA have already confirmed to Aer Lingus that this won't get the goahead for this as the DAA already have future plans for these lands.

The papers just jumped on the info that was put up on the Henry J Lyons & Partners website.

There is an article in this weeks Fingal Independent regarding this.

Edited to say these plans are around 3 years old.

Maskhadov

so this whole story is bogus ?

Bluetonic

It appears that way.

If I can scan in the story from the Fingal Independent I will, it may be even online at unison.ie

Maskhadov

In anticipation of a positive response from the directors, the airline is ready to move immediately to seek planning permission from Fingal County Council.

So the IRish times is just making the above up ? I find that incredible.

Please scan in that article if you get a moment

Bluetonic

The Fingal Independent is available in Easons and throughout North County Dublin, and in the airport itself.

As I said I will scan in the article if I still have the paper at home, if not I suggest you buy it to see the credibility of the story or contact the fingal indepenent (www.fingal-independent.ie) who are based in Swords.

Bluetonic

Maskhadov wrote:

So the IRish times is just making the above up ? I find that incredible.

Please scan in that article if you get a moment

As we know, newspapers NEVER make anything up.

Anyhow here is the article, I can give you the contacts in the Fingal Independent if you want to follow the article up. The article is in the current edition of the paper, which runs from October 19th to October 25th (as in this article ran before the OP one)

Maskhadov

thanks a million for scanning that in bluetonic... personally i think its a great project for the airport although maybe the metro could stop at a better location.