Developer Bryan Cullen of Jackson Homes is lodging a planning application for 196 apartments and houses on a site to the rear of Sach's Hotel in Donnybrook, Dublin 4. He bought the site for €20 million last year.

The 3.3-acre site with frontage on Bloomfield Avenue and Morehampton Road - for which he outbid many other developers - is on part of a nine-acre front lawn of the Avila Retreat Centre beside the Royal Hospital in Donnybrook.

The planning application to Dublin City Council is for 182 apartments in four six-storey apartment buildings, 14 houses and a crèche.

It also proposes 35 surface car-parking spaces, 158 basement car-parking spaces and 200 bicycle spaces.

The land was sold by the Disclosed Carmelite Fathers and is regarded as one of the best remaining development areas in the south inner city.