“Fresh, youthful, contemporary, energetic”, is how Padraic Rhatigan describes the Radisson Red, his stylish and edgy new four-star hotel in a fledgling development called Crown Square on the edge of Galway city.
Ireland’s newest hotel was most of that when I visited the 177-bedroom property earlier this month. Splashes of red are dotted around the venue, including a bright red piano just inside the entrance. There are splashes of red on the many paintings and pictures around the property and the theme is carried through to its smartly furnished Lena’s rooftop bar on the sixth floor (named after Rhatigan’s now 97-year-old mother), which offers views all the way out to Galway Bay on one side, such is the low-rise nature of the city.
Rhatigan even wears a red tie when having his photo taken for this interview. He is totally on brand.
“We’re actually probably more conservative than some of the [95] Radisson Reds [around the world],” he says. “I was in one in South Africa and there was a big red Coke can that you could nearly sit in at the lobby. Another one had a red Mini. We put in the red piano.”
Did the 64-year-old have to be persuaded about the concept? “Not really. I liked the idea of it being about efficiency and smartness. If you and I were meeting 10 years ago we’d both have ties on us. Things change.”
One tweak to the concept in Galway is a suite of modern meeting facilities that Rhatigan hopes will attract corporate business from the neighbouring offices that he is also developing.
The hotel opened with a soft launch on November 28th; the smell of fresh paint and newly laid carpets still hangs in the air. Things began to get busy in December in the run-up to Christmas and occupancy went “through the roof” when Storm Éowyn hit on January 24th, as locals without power or water, or both in some cases, sought refuge.
It has also provided lodgings for ESB workers from other parts of the country dealing with the aftermath of the storm.
“It’s an ill wind that doesn’t blow some good,” Rhatigan jokes.
Some wrinkles in the service of food and drink are still to be ironed out as the hotel continues to find its feet and the young team, led by general manager Aidan Donohue, adjust to the challenge of rising occupancy levels.
Rhatigan says the hotel has the “potential” to deliver revenues of €9 million to €10 million this year, rising to between €12 million and €13 million over the next three years. He cites typical room rates of €220-€240, with lower rates and deals for corporate bookings or groups.
Radisson Red has 90 full-time staff and 20-30 part-time employees. Rhatigan’s fear that it might be a struggle to attract workers in an economy at full employment proved to be unfounded.
“Last September we took the ground floor of one of the empty office blocks here and set up a recruitment fair,” he says. “They were setting up tables and I remember asking them, ‘How many people do you think we’re going to get? We’re at full employment in this country.’
“I’m glad to say I was proven wrong. We had 800 to 900 people come along on one day alone. They were mostly gainfully employed but a lot of them were looking for an opportunity to come back to Ireland or to Galway. And then there were young graduates. It bucks the trend when you consider all the talk about how hard it is to get people.
“Now all we need is customers,” he adds with a chuckle.
Radisson Red is just one element of the 12.5-acre Crown Square campus that Rhatigan is developing and which will take shape over the next three to five years.
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He also has permission for 400,000sq ft of offices across five buildings (two are completed), 345 apartments across five blocks, which have been sold to the Land Development Agency for social housing and cost rentals, a public square, 1,000 car-parking spaces, retail units and a running and walking track around the entire site.
There are no plans to host weddings but the corporate market is definitely on the hotel’s radar.
“I said to a fellah one day that if you were a good golfer, you could hit a five iron [from the hotel] to Boston Scientific or Medtronic. And then you have others like SAP, Thermo King across the road, and we’re the right side of the city for them. They have business coming through the system all the time.”
The Galway Radisson is a sister property, within the Rhatigan Group, to the 234-bedroom Radisson Blu hotel (opened 17 years ago) on Golden Lane, near St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, and the adjoining Dublin Royal Convention Centre and 150,000sq ft of offices in Rhatigan’s Le Pole Square development.
Half of the Dublin offices are currently occupied and “hopefully the balance we’ll fill up fairly soon”, he says. The convention centre can accommodate up to 1,400 people and hosted the Irish Film and Television Academy awards earlier this month.
The first thing I had to do was stabilise a small rural business. The 1980s were tough. There were seven or eight years of slog and just keeping the doors open
— Padraic Rhatigan
Is it a case of just two will do, or would Rhatigan like to add more hotels to his portfolio?
“If an opportunity arose I wouldn’t rule it out but we’re not out looking for one,” he says.
The “engine” of the Rhatigan group remains JJ Rhatigan, one of the country’s biggest and most successful building contractors. It was founded in the 1950s by John Joseph Rhatigan in Tuam, north Galway.
JJ was a tradesman who worked for a number of years in the United States before returning home to set up the business. He died at just 57 years of age, leaving behind a wife and seven children.
Padriac was just 11 when his father died and admits that he couldn’t wait to get through secondary school at St Jarlath’s, Tuam, and a two-year construction management course in college to take the helm of the business at the tender age of 19.
He remembers working summers on sites, helping carpenters and spending time in the family joinery shop. “I suppose it’s in your DNA.”
What was it daunting taking over the family business while still in his teens?
“It was, yeah, but when you’re young you’ve nothing to lose. Ignorance is a great thing,” he quips.
“The first thing I had to do was stabilise a small rural business. The 1980s were tough. There were seven or eight years of slog and just keeping the doors open.”
Things gradually began to turn in the 1990s.
“In 1990 I won the contract to build the Chapel of Reconciliation in Knock, which was our first €1 million-plus building contract.”
The firm built Brooks Hotel in Dublin in 1996, its first contract in the capital, and moved to a new head office in Galway city to be closer to the action. In 2012 it moved into the UK to diversify its income stream after an Irish-based client asked it to build a Premier Inn hotel and an office block in London.
A lot of the business is from our Irish connections, people we have worked for here ... Even with Brexit, London is still an attractive city for capital.”
— Padraic Rhatigan
Premier Inn then put the company on its own tender list and it built four more properties for the chain.
Last year JJ Rhatigan booked revenues of €350 million in Ireland and £150 million (€181 million) in the UK, where it works in the Greater London area.
Its pipeline of work here includes projects for the Department of Education, the HSE and universities. He says the company “could double” its business in Britain in the morning but he’s happy with the current level of activity.
“A lot of it is from our Irish connections, people we have worked for here. We’ve had plenty of opportunities to go to Manchester, which would be grand, but it would be grand to go to Holland too, or somewhere else. Even with Brexit, London is still an attractive city for capital.”
Rhatigan declines to reveal the group’s profit figure. “We’re an unlimited company and it’s a competitive figure. But we’re solid, with good cash flow and good balance sheets. We would be making good returns.”
The hotels are ring-fenced from the contracting business. Luxor Investments owns the hotel in Dublin and a sister entity, Luxor Leisure Ltd, operates the properties. The hotels are franchises from Radisson, which “gives us international brand recognition”. Luxor also operates the Royal Dublin Convention Centre.
Why diversify into hotels?
“We were involved in a lot of hotel construction. Building Brooks in Dublin 30 years ago, we also did the Schoolhouse in Dublin, the Station House in Clifden, and the Sheraton and Glasson hotels in Athlone.
“I was watching these guys and how they operated. Hotels are all about the customer and as a building contractor it’s all about the customer, too. The principles of the businesses are not dissimilar. As a group we have a lot to bring to the operational side.”
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The Crown Square site was in development under different owners before the 2008 property and financial crash, with JJ Rhatigan as a contractor. The company took a “financial hit” on its work there and the site later came under the control of Nama.
In 2019 Rhatigan purchased the site from Nama via an entity called Crown Square Developments Ltd and developed a new master plan for the district.
His vision is that it will potentially be able to cater for all the needs of office workers, everything from a creche and a gym to coffee shops, the hotel, apartments that staff could rent, with underground car parking and cycling facilities.
“The basement of every office block has shower and changing facilities. It’s nearly what people expect,” he says.
Two of the planned five blocks have been built with work on another two set to begin soon. “We’re going to consider options for the fifth one, which is on the far side of the square. I’ve started asking myself if I need to change that from office to residential or something to complement the hotel, short-term lettings maybe.”
Rhatigan’s two sons John (who did quantity surveying and project management) and Niall (an accountant who takes care of debt management) work in the business. Rhatigan is effectively an executive chairman with CEOs from outside the family running both the contracting and hospitality businesses.
Having run the business for 45 years, has he worked out a succession plan?
“I’m hoping the company will remain in the ownership and overall management of the family and that, where necessary, good quality management will be retained internally,” he says, adding that a family trust was established some time ago to deal with succession issues.
“They’ll [his sons] be the ultimate shareholders or representatives on the trust. I’d like to see them involved but if you appoint a CEO you have to let them manage. If they [the sons] are to become the CEO it should be on merit.”
For now at least, Rhatigan shows no sign of slowing down. “I’m still five days a week. I should be probably be giving people their head more. And there’s no reason not to − the people we have are well capable of running these businesses. But I’m doing what I like doing.”
CV
Name: Padraic Rhatigan
Job: Chairman and group managing director of Rhatigan Group
Age: 64
Family: Married to Sandra with four adult children, two sons and two daughters.
Lives: Bushypark, Galway
Hobbies: Loves all sports. He plays golf, with a handicap “north of 20″.
Something we might expect: He’s a GAA fan and hosted the Galway senior football team at the Radisson Blu in Dublin last July for the All Ireland final against Armagh. “Being from north Galway, you couldn’t but be a football fan.”
Something that might surprise: He won an All Ireland college cup football final with St Jarlath’s at Croke Park in 1978. “I was on the bench but you needn’t print that.”
