Redevelopment: The developer who bought the Jurys site for €260m plans a complex that would include a 32-storey tower. Edel Morgan reports

Mountbrook Homes' Sean Dunne, who emerged the top bidder for the Jurys Doyle site in Ballsbridge at €260 million, plans to redevelop it as a "top class residential development" with a landmark tower of up to 32 storeys.

Mr Dunne, who fought off 13 other bidders for the five-acre site, said the Jurys Doyle site is the best in Dublin in terms of its size and location.

"The only better site is St Stephen's Green and I don't think they will sell that," he quipped. The runner-up bids are believed to be from developers Alanis Ltd, Glenkerrin Homes and Taggart Homes.

The selling price exceeded guestimates that the site would fetch up to €200 million.

Mr Dunne says he will sit down with Dublin City Council planners to discuss his proposal for a luxury development with a high rise tower on a pivotal corner of the site at Lansdowne Road and Pembroke Road.

The development will be "akin to the top apartments in Manhattan" with 24-hour concierge service and security and a leisure centre with a swimming pool and gym, he said.

The apartments - of which he hopes to build 500 to 600 subject to planning permission - will be larger then the average at up to 372sq m (4,000sq ft) and will be similar in style to his luxury Hollybrook development off Brighton Road in Foxrock.

There will also be a retail element fronting Pembroke Road which will probably include a hairdresser, restaurant, convenience store and pharmacy. Access is likely to be from Lansdowne Road.

As with previous proposals for 32-storey towers at Barrow Street in Dublin 4 and on a site opposite Heuston station, which was finally granted permission by An Bord Pleanála in June, this one is likely to spark local controversy.

Jurys will stay on site for two years and should Mountbrook Homes not have to go through a protracted planning process, construction will begin in June 2007 and the first occupants should move around December 2008.

Among the developments that Mountbrook Homes has built are St Helen's Wood and Merrion Grove in Booterstown, Co Dublin; Fosterbrook in Donnybrook, Dublin 4; St Raphael's Manor in Celbridge and Riverside IV, a complex of 55 apartments and 21,500sq m (231,426sq ft), of office space in Dublin's south docklands.

Mountbrook is also about to lodge a planning application for 500 homes at Woodtown in Rathfarnham, Dublin 14.