Hatch Hall to house refugees again following sale for €23m

The much-anticipated delivery of a five-star boutique hotel at Hatch Hall, the former university residence hall on Hatch Street, Dublin 2, looks set to be delayed yet again following its sale by Red Carnation Hotels.

While the landmark Victorian property came to the market with full planning permission for conversion and extension into a 60-bedroom hotel, it is understood the new owner intends to enter into a contract with the State to use the property to accommodate people seeking asylum in Ireland instead. The purchaser, a private Irish investor, is understood to have paid about €23 million for Hatch Hall, or some €2 million less than the €25 million John Hughes of CBRE’s hotels division had been guiding when he offered it for sale last November. Mr Hughes declined to comment on the price achieved for the property or the latest owner’s plans for it when contacted by The Irish Times.

Designed by architect Charles Powell, Hatch Hall was built originally for the Jesuit order in 1912 to provide accommodation for 70 students attending University College Dublin’s original campus at nearby Earlsfort Terrace. Before being owned by Red Carnation, the property had been used for a number of years by its previous owners, East Coast Catering Ireland Ltd, as a direct provision centre to house asylum seekers for the Department of Justice. East Coast acquired Hatch Hall in 2011 after the Galway-based developer Gerry Barrett put it up for sale for just €6 million as part of his efforts to pay down his company Edward Holdings’ debt to Nama.

While Mr Barrett, who bought the building for €16 million in 2004, had secured permission from Dublin City Council to transform it into an 81-bedroom hotel, the plan was later shot down by An Bord Pleanála. And although he subsequently secured approval to convert the building into 36 apartments, that plan fell by the wayside.

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More recently, Red Carnation, and more particularly its late founder and chairman, Stanley Tollman, had intended that Hatch Hall would act as a complement in the capital to its other Irish hotels, the five-star Ashford Castle Hotel and The Lodge at Ashford in Cong, Co Mayo. Having paid €20 million to acquire the property in 2019, the South African-headquartered company sought and secured planning permission for an eight-storey over-basement hotel with 60 bedrooms and two bars and a restaurant in the former chapel building, extending to approximately 7,292sq m (78,490sq ft). Red Carnation made what it described as a “reluctant” decision last November to sell the property following Mr Tollman’s death in 2021.

Red Carnation entered the Irish hotel market in 2013 with its €20 million purchase of Ashford Castle and its 148-hecatre (365-acre) estate from Gerry Barrett after the developer put it into receivership. But while Red Carnation’s acquisition of Ashford Castle secured all 160 jobs at the resort and allowed the business to continue trading, it also served to crystallise a significant loss for Mr Barrett on his original investment. The Galway businessman had paid €50 million in 2008 to buy the property overlooking Lough Corrib from a group of Irish-American investors.