Eamon Waters seeks to build 61-room hotel close to St Stephen’s Green

Eamon Waters’s Sretaw Hotel Group is seeking to build a 61-bedroom hotel opposite its existing Grafton Hotel close to St Stephen’s Green in Dublin. In the planning application, the group said it was not “speculative” and pointed to the need for more hotel rooms in the capital and the benefits this could bring to the housing market by freeing up Airbnb rentals.

The proposed hotel would rise to eight storeys on a site known as Textile House on Johnson’s Place and Clarendon Market. It would represent an extension to the Grafton Hotel’s 127 bedrooms.

Mr Waters bought Textile House last year after it was put on the market for €6.5 million. The businessman sold his waste company Beauparc Utilities for €1.3 billion in 2021.

In a letter supporting the application by Grafton Residence UC, group property manager at the Sretaw Hotel group Colm Lydon said the Grafton Hotel’s occupancy rate for the first six months of the year was above 90 per cent. Mr Lydon forecast occupancy of close to 90 per cent for the remainder of 2023, adding that most of the property’s guests come from overseas, principally the US.

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A planning report lodged with the Grafton Residence application argues that the provision of a new hotel will help to improve the housing supply locally because it will help to release Airbnb stock back to the more conventional housing sector. The report says 978 short-term holiday rentals are located within 1km of the proposed development, thus providing strong evidence of the need for more hotel accommodation.

A report on hotel concentration concludes meanwhile that there is no over-concentration of hotels around the site. The report states that the Dublin hotel market requires 2,440 additional bed spaces added each year to meet overseas and domestic visitor needs.