Dublin City Council has granted Brown Table Solutions planning permission to convert Loreto House on Stephen's Green into an 87-bedroom luxury hotel with restaurant and spa.
The conversion, which will involve adding an eight-storey block to the rear of Loreto House, was approved in spite of objections from the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Office of Public Works and the Irish Georgian Society, reports the Irish Examiner.
The ministerial offices of the Department of Foreign Affairs are located next door at Iveagh House, which regularly acts as a venue for confidential meetings and negotiations with heads of state, national and foreign dignitaries, political leaders and high-ranking diplomats.
Security is of the utmost importance at Iveagh House as a result and the director of the department's property management unit, Kevin Colgan, informed officials at Dublin City Council that, "The proposal to construct a bank of hotels rooms with windows facing directly into the Iveagh House offices and ballroom (its main meeting room) with inadequate separation distance is of great concern to the Department of Foreign Affairs."
Loreto House hit the market with a guide price of €5.75 million last year and its conversion is to cost an estimated €40 million.
Objectors to the project have the option of appealing to An Bord Pleanála.
