ONE OF DUBLIN’S best known hotels is up for sale at around a quarter of the price paid by a property developer in 2007.
The Burlington Hotel on Upper Leeson Street is on the market for €75m, a fraction of what developer Bernard McNamara paid for it at the height of the boom. The 501 bedroom hotel, which sits on 3.1 acres, has been put on the market by receiver Paul McCann of accountancy firm Grant Thornton.
Based at one of Dublin’s “most sought after” addresses, the hotel “boasts the widest range of conference and event facilities in Dublin and has the busiest hotel banqueting and conference business in Ireland” according to a statement from CBRE Hotels Dublin, the estate agent that announced the sale.
McNamara had planned to demolish the hotel. But according to CBRE, the Dublin hotel market has undergone a remarkable resurgence since late 2010. Bedroom occupancy has been in positive territory since September 2010 according to Smith Travel Research, and has grown consistenly for each of the last 23 months.
“As these STR statistics clearly demonstrate, Dublin hotels have been amongst the very best performing hotels in Europe this year.”
The hotel will host 1,000 guests this weekend for the US College Football game between Notre Dame and the US Navy team, which will bring a total of 30,000 American tourists into the capital.
McNamara resigned from his construction firm in 2010 after he was ordered by the High Court to pay €62.5m to investors under a personal guarantee he had given on money borrowed by one of his companies, Donatex. That company had borrowed €98m to help fund the purchase of the Irish Glass Bottle site for €412m.
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