€30m sought for Temple Bar Hotel

Another profitable hotel in Dublin city centre is to be offered for sale on the international market.

FBD Property and Leisure, an Irish-owned partner in the hotel and golf resorts markets in Ireland and Spain, is planning to avail of the recovery in the Dublin hotel sector to offload the Temple Bar Hotel in Fleet Street.

Interested parties are to be invited to make offers in the region of €27 million to €30 million, according to selling agent Dermot Curtin of CBRE.

The three-star hotel near the main entrance to Temple Bar has consistently benefitted from the high number of visitors to the area throughout the year.

Nightclub

It has 132 en-suite bedrooms and a thriving food and beverage operation as well as a late night attraction – Alchemy nightclub.

Developed and opened in 1994 – three years after the official launch of Temple Bar as a tourist attraction now better known as pub destination – it has traded successfully since then, attracting mainly Irish and overseas business people during the week and many hen and stag parties at weekends.

It operates an extremely busy Buskers Bar for most of the week, offering live music nightly which frequently attracts up to 400 patrons. Alchemy nightclub in the basement is licensed to accommodate 1,050 people. There is scope to add another 27 bedrooms to the hotel, subject to planning approval.

One of the attractions of the sale is that new owners will have the option to decide whether to trade under the current strong independent name or relaunch the hotel with a top international brand either on a franchise basis or with the benefit of a full management contract.

Buoyant market

With many of the better known global brands still not represented in Dublin, the well located Temple Bar Hotel is likely to appeal to them and to specialist hotel investors who provide the equity and support to these branded hotels.

Key statistics show that the Dublin hotel market has been one of the top three best performing cities in Europe over the past three years.

And there is good news for the immediate future as PwC has forecast that Dublin will remain amongst the most buoyant markets for at least the next two years.

No doubt FBD Property and Leisure will be hoping to attract the attention of a range of Irish and overseas investors, not least the US billionaire John Malone who recently bought the five-star Westin Hotel close to Temple Bar in Westmoreland Street for €65 million. It will be run by John Lally's successful Lalco Hotel Group under a franchise agreement with Westin Hotels & Resorts.

The Westin is the third hotel in Dublin to have been acquired by Mr Malone and his Irish partners. The others are the Trinity City Hotel, Pearse Street, and the Hilton Hotel, Charlemont Place.

FBD's other Irish hotels are at Castleknock in the west Dublin and Faithlegg in Waterford.