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A DEVELOPER PLANS on turning the former Rialto Cinema into purpose-built student accommodation.
Molaga Capital Limited has applied to An Bord Pleanála through strategic housing development (SHD) to turn the former cinema site into a 317-bed student building.
The site is currently vacant, having formerly been a motor sales showroom and before that the cinema. It is proposed to turn it into a mixed-use site with residential student accommodation and a café with an outdoor garden area.
Local Labour councillor Rebecca Moynihan told TheJournal.ie that she has contacted all the councillors in the area to try to arrange a meeting to discuss the proposed development.
She expressed disappointment over the fact the vacant site could be turned into student accommodation while Dublin is experiencing a housing crisis.
Should the planning permission be approved, all of the buildings and structures on the site would be demolished. However, the front Art Deco section of the building would be retained, “restored to its original form, and incorporated into the proposed development”.
The development will also consist of the construction of a mixed-use building (with a total area of c. 11,266 sq m) ranging in height from three to seven storeys over basement, with 317 student beds arranged in 313 rooms. There would be 276 one-bed bedrooms, four two-bed bedrooms and 33 studios.
There would also be four open courtyards, a TV lounge; gym; cinema; communal areas; circulation areas; reception; library; and a meeting/event room.
The site is 100m from the junction of Dolphins Barn Street on the South Circular Road.
When the site went up for sale for €2.5 million, the real estate agent BNP said of it:
With the extremely well documented shortage of residential and student accommodation the timing of such a development is extremely favourable and should afford a developer the opportunity to capitalise on the strong demand from occupier markets.
…this asset is an ideal City Centre opportunity for an investor developer looking to capitalise on an area on the verge of transformation.
Disappointment
Cllr Moynihan told TheJournal.ie of the site: “I think it’s been lying derelict for over 20 years but it’s really disappointing that it’s student accommodation that’s going in there. I think there needs to be a mix of services and housing.”
She added that in terms of the strategic housing development applications being put through for the local area, the most common are student accommodation, followed by build to rent, followed by co-living.
“So we’re not seeing long-term apartments that people can live in,” said Moynihan. She said that she would prefer the site to be turned into a building with a mix of services on the bottom floor and housing above it.
Moynihan added: “I just can’t see that there are that many students who have the amount of money that the student accommodation providers are charging.”
Under strategic housing development rules, developers can bypass the local authority for student accommodation for more than 200 beds, and go straight to An Bord Pleanála.
“I suppose the worry is that you’re only going to have people coming and staying for as short as nine months [in the student accommodation],” said the councillor. “The bigger worry seems to me there is an oversupply of student accommodation coming down the line when we’re in the midst of a housing crisis.”
The site notice went up on 6 August, and there are now five weeks in which people can make submissions or observations in writing to ABP on the proposed development.
Currently in the Dublin 8 area, there are:
The cost of student accommodation in Dublin has been criticised, with new student rooms in some buildings costing a minimum of €249 a week.
In April of this year, a survey found that just under 80% of students living in privately-operated purpose-built student accommodation in Dublin are international students.
On average they had a rent of €250-a-week. Residents said they spent on average €64 weekly in the local area.
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What does Councillor Moynihan want, to have it fester for another 20 years? Sick and tired of these ‘locals’ who’ve done absolutely nothing to develop their area for decades who get the pitchforks out as soon as any type of change comes to their area. Not only will this make use of a derelict site, it will also help bring down the price of student accommodation, free up more of the rental market for Dubs that need it (bringing the price of rents down across the board) and also bring a much needed mixture of tenure to that part of Rialto which is still very much corporation locals.
@Darren Bates: you expect the locals to develop the area?? Do you have a notion on local planning? So you think their building this accommodation in order to reduce the market rate for student accommodation? Do you have any form of intelligence?
have the locals got the pitch forks out yet? thats usually what happens when a developer wants to re-develop total eyesore kips! Think about the “heritage” of the site, the local two floor dump environs and keep it that way. Dont provide much needed housing in central areas for people anyway. Let them commute in from Kildare, Meath etc for an hour and a half on the disgraceful public transport!
@Shane Murphy: it will do nothing whatsoever to alleviate housing issues in the area. It’s like you didn’t even read the article, it’s student accommodation primarily for wealthy overseas students and those Irish students who can afford it. It will only make housing more expensive and will not stop people commuting long distances to work.
@Conor Kennelly: the students have to live somewhere. If they didn’t live here they’d be taking up houses.
@Conor Kennelly: or maybe those rich foreign students will move out of their current accommodation, and free it up for the poor Irish people.
@Conor Kennelly: where are those students already living? In family houses and apartments all around the city. By moving them into dedicated student accommodation, this will free up supply in the general housing market ergo will help the crisis by reducing prices. Economics 101 – ceteris paribus a movement of the supply curve to the right will result in the price falling.
@Orpuk Jones: yeah and soon those bloody graduates will be taking our jobs
@Darren Bates: Darren – The first rule of the Irish housing market is that it doesn’t move like a standard product, i.e. More supply will reduce demand. Just look at the last 15yrs to destroy your argument
@Conor Kennelly: and what ??? Investors are in business to make money not friends , our own government won’t spend a penny , yet people keep voting these shitehawks in year after year
I see it will stretch up to 7 floors, they’ll be seeing this one all the way from Dubai! What does Councillor Moynihan , the expert, with no vested interest in curtailing development as much as possible, to appease her nimby constituents propose? standard apartments that would house closer to 31 than 317?
@Shane Murphy: She definitely has a good point. There is alot of student accommodation at a time when the disgraceful co-living was approved. And the building has to be demolished. Poor decision
Seems majority of building is student accommodation. Prices of these are normally too expensive for irish students.
@Susan O’flaherty: yeah isn’t it awful that we’re attracting all of these students who pay big non-EU fees from around the world to our very high ranking universities TCD, UCD, DCU and TUD who may very well stay here with the skills they learned at no expense to the taxpayer and raise their families and contribute even more. What a desperate situation!
@Darren Bates: no, the awful part is that the very system that these students are paying top dollar for are out of the reach of the very people these services are (sorry were) supposedly for. What you did is called ‘deflecting’.
@Artugal: bs. I come from a lone parent family in Cherry Orchard, the poorest place in Ireland, worked my way through college with grant help and got a good job afterwards. There is not much economical holding any student back in Ireland who applied themselves through school and wants to make a success of themselves, they might have to take a part time job but there’s a good few of them even during recessions in a place like Dublin.
@Darren Bates: that’s great if your from Dublin. The problem extends a bit further than that. Problems with grants can last for months, and months. How would you propose a young student with no golden goose manages rent in a market like Dublin? I mean beyond paying fees it is too much for people from places where the recession never ended.
@Artugal: There are dedicated Access programmes in all 4 universities in Dublin and in the universities across the country, coupled with the student assistant fund and an increasing amount of university-owned units around the city both on- and off-campus. It is possible for students even from the poorest backgrounds to be able to access accommodation for university if they choose that.
With the rollout of increasing broadband speeds, distance learning will definitely become more widely adopted going forward for students who come from really remote areas. Live lectures, tutorials and seminars that can be watched back when needed for revision, can either be used in conjunction with a smaller amount of contact time or in some cases no contact at all.
@Darren Bates: very high ranking universities? Not one of them is in the Top 50 and their declining. And there only taking places from Irish students
@Whoswho: it would be an absolutely amazing achievement to get a Dublin university into the top 50 considering how competitive it is in the world at the moment, India has more honours students in school than the United States has students at all – the fact that they’re all in the top 500 out of all the universities in all the cities in the world is very very good. The fact that Dublin will be the biggest English speaking city in the EU in a matter of weeks is also very attractive. Living in a liberal, English speaking city getting high ranking education is a huge draw.
Also, I have never seen any evidence that the number of CAO places on a course has dropped because non-EU entrants got their instead. That practice just doesn’t happen, in fact it would be a massive scandal if it ever did.
@Whoswho: *they’re, maybe you should avail of one of those declining universities
@Darren Bates: Sorry, there is no Irish University in Top 100! Universities have limited places so it doesn’t take a study to confirm that Non EU places are reducing the amount of places for Irish people. Universities and colleges have openly admitted it. Do a Google search
@Darren Bates:
Well said young Darren , you are a credit to the new generation. In time you will be the new CEO’s ? Political leaders of this country . This will happen. Many of your peers will try and haul you back to their sordid existence. Their is hope.
imagine students only living there for nine months of the year pouring money into the local economy in shops, services restaurants &putting life into the place etc why, it’s absolutely terrible.. a disgrace…
The issue is that we already have around 4,000 student units in the near vicinity in D8, either built or in development, and we think that this site might be better suited for full time accommodation for local residents. That’s all… We, local residents, welcome good thoughtful development, but we’ll query and help to improve plans that we think would be detrimental…
(Nothing against student accommodation, but it’s super cheap and convenient for developers, e.g. smaller units, no kitchens, no parking, etc; and they seem to be taking advantage of the special development planning laws to circumvent normal planning channels; not to mention they have 320 beds and only 160 bike parking spaces in the plans….)
Kthxbai
Another set of apartments in an already overcrowded D 8 ….interesting to see there’s no equal spread of same in D4/6/ or other such areas.
@Silence in the City: it’s a free market, no one is targeting Dublin 8 specifically, all development sites in the much nicer Dublin 4/6 are being snapped up too
A lot of money to be made from student accommodation. That’s the bottom line here. Trinity College made 10.9 Million profit from student accommodation in 2018. It doesn’t matter that people are crying out for affordable housing, affordable rental accommodation.
http://www.universitytimes.ie/2019/08/trinity-made-e10-9m-profit-from-student-accommodation-in-2018/?fbclid=IwAR1_EkUaWO7rccEqkgFZ_-ESQcerkvMyZEqo2WZuqkt01fJqTZxFF6BOjAo
@Dave Doyle: money that will go towards educating those students, what’s the problem?
@talkingsense: So the rents go to subsidise the student’s education. Yeah right.
@Dave Doyle: must be exhausting being so cynical Dave.
@talkingsense: Not at all.
@Dave Doyle: I’m not surprised in that response. You put so much effort into bitching and moaning about a country you don’t live in you’re well able for it
@talkingsense: Don’t take it so personal.
What about families mothers fathers kids ?
We will have to open more colleges so we can fill up all the student accommodation!!
Didn’t know people in Rialto went to college
@Darren Forde: wow your ignorance is a testament to your own!!
Student accommodation is a good thing, but it should be built near the third level institutions, so that the students aren’t adding to public transport congestion. Fair enough, Griffith College is 10 minutes walk from this new place, but I don’t know if there’s much else around there. Same goes for all the students places in Dublin 8. I’d much rather see them near Grange Gorman, DCU, UCD, or in the city centre.
The area needs change, development and diversity. Some has come in recent years but any more public housing would confirm it as a ghetto – I’ve lived there for 25 yrs and watched little happen apart from the LUAS, where does the Councillor live, Dublin 6 or 4?
Why all the lovely student blocks everywhere? What Dublin needs is reasonably priced 1 and 2 bedroom apartments for working adults.
Anyone know what college is this targeted at?
@dublindamo: there’s the 17 direct bus to UCD, the LUAS to TCD and Tallaght AND City Centre.
Is sufficient parking included for the complex; many students now have cars and add to parking congestion where these student housing complexes are situated – in general I support the proposal; there is enough dereliction in the Rialto/Dolphins Barn area.
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