Former Dublin office complex to provide homes for more than 200 people

A Dublin office complex, vacant for 20 years, will next month become home to more than 200 people following its conversion into social housing apartments under a €26 million redevelopment scheme.

The 86 apartments in two blocks at the Plaza in Park West, close to Cherry Orchard, were bought from Harcourt Developments by housing association Tuath and will provide homes for people on Dublin City Council’s housing waiting list.

The buildings are located in the 230-acre Park West business and technology campus built by Harcourt in the late 1990s and early 2000s. While most of the buildings in the business park are occupied by companies, the two adjoining blocks, known as 70 and 72 The Plaza, did not secure commercial tenants.

Harcourt secured planning permission in 2018 to convert the two blocks into apartments. Two years later Tuath entered into a deal to acquire and fund the conversion of the offices into homes using financing from the Department of Housing and a loan from AIB’s Social Investment Fund.

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While the majority of homes provided by Tuath are newly built, the organisation said it was increasingly keen to bring vacant buildings back into use as homes.

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“This includes refurbishing vacant homes in unfinished estates, converting protected buildings to homes meeting the needs of the communities in which they are located or, in this example, repurposing office blocks to provide high-quality residential apartments in an area of need,” a spokeswoman said.

The two-year conversion project, which was undertaken by Harcourt on behalf of Tuath, has cost about €309,000 per apartment, a similar cost to newly built apartments in the area and more than the cost of second-hand homes locally on the open market. However, she said the cost “represents excellent value for apartments of this standard within Dublin city”.

Sustainability was also a “core principle” of Tuath’s development strategy, she said, “and one of the most sustainable forms of housing provision is working with buildings that already exist”. She said the project was a “great example of the repurposing model” and “something we hope to replicate”.

Tuath is already working on another office conversion in Cork at Springville House on Blackrock Road, which will provide 35 homes for social tenants looking to downsize. This will include 31 apartments built in the existing structure along with four bungalows on the grounds.

The Park West blocks, which will house 220 people, are a mix of one- and two-bed apartments, with energy ratings from A2 to B2. The blocks are fitted with exhaust air heat pumps, heat recovery ventilation systems and photovoltaic solar panels, Harcourt said.

Tuath earlier this year completed its first south Dublin cost-rental schemes nearby, at Kilcarbery Grange, Clondalkin and Parklands in Citywest.