Plan to turn vacant hotel in Kilkee into apartments gets green light

A hotel in the popular seaside resort of Kilkee, Co Clare, which has lain vacant for six years, is to be redeveloped as an 18-bed apartment complex with a fishing museum.

The Ocean Cove, overlooking Moore Bay and close to Kilkee Golf Club, closed some six years ago and has lain vacant since. However, permission has just been granted by An Bord Pleanála to GFT Investments to build 18 apartments (11 two-bedroom and seven three-bedroom), as well as a restaurant and bar on the ground floor, and to create an interpretative centre for the fishing industry and an interactive museum and gallery.

The hotel was originally built on the site of the old Atlantic Hotel, along with some 60 holiday homes and apartments under the Seaside Renewal Scheme, opening around 1999. It was owned by Lynch Hotels; however, the hotel group, which also ran the West County in Ennis and the Clare Inn in Dromoland, ran into trouble in the downturn, and went into examinership in 2009. The hotel was still turning over an income, however – some € 16,000 a year from two telecommunications masts – and was put on the market for €750,000 in 2015.

Other bidders for the site, according to the planning documents, included the owners of the 20-bedroom Stella Maris hotel, the only hotel currently operating in the Co Clare town.

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Concerns

Permission was sought by Gavin Tier and Coinneath Uí Coinneal, directors of GFT Investments, to change the hotel into apartments last year but was originally refused on the grounds that the loss of a hotel “would negatively impact on the vibrancy, balance and sustainability of the existing tourist service” in the town. Concerns were also put forward that the apartments would be bought as holiday homes, and would not help to “rejuvenate the town”, which has a very high vacancy rate. The 2016 census indicated that the town, which has just 1,691 dwellings, has a vacancy rate of some 72 per cent, due to a very high proportion of vacant holiday homes in the off-season.

However, the appeal asserted that “there is no viable future use for the building as a hotel”, and the cost of renovating the hotel, which had fallen into a state of disrepair, were put at about €2 million.

An Bord Pleanála has subsequently granted permission, taking into consideration the ongoing vacant status of the site, subject to some conditions.

A few years ago another site in the seaside town, formerly operated as a Christian guesthouse, was also earmarked as a possible hotel. However, the Clár Ellagh site was acquired by Limerick based developers and turned into three residential properties, one of which is currently on the market for €750,000.