DRINKS GIANT Diageo will this week submit a planning application to Dublin City Council to expand the brewing capacity at its St James’s Gate facility in the capital as part of a proposed €100 million-plus investment.
After about seven months of consultation with the council, Diageo has finalised a masterplan for the site that would involve a new brewhouse being constructed on the northern campus of the 55-acre site.
This is an area that runs from James’s Street to Victoria Quay, close to Heuston train station.
At present, the Guinness brewhouse is located on the southern side of the campus, close to the popular Storehouse visitor centre.
A spokeswoman for Diageo said yesterday that the redevelopment of the site would allow the company to “deliver the global competitiveness necessary for future growth and sustained success” of the company.
The investment has yet to be formally sanctioned by the board of Diageo.
“The redevelopment of the brewery is one of the options now under consideration for Diageo’s European brewing operations, and a decision to proceed with this option and to sanction the required investment has not been made,” she added.
However, such approval is considered likely if the council gives the expansion plan the green light.
Diageo’s plan involves expanding capacity at the brewery to about eight million hectolitres.
If planning permission is obtained, construction could begin in the first half of 2012 and take about a year to complete.
The new brewhouse would produce the pint of plain for the Irish, UK, US and certain other international markets.
This would secure the future of the St James’s Gate brewery, although it is not clear what implications it would have for its other breweries in Ireland.
It is also not clear what would happen to the site of the current brewhouse, which is likely to be decommissioned when the new facility becomes fully operational.
In 2009, Diageo announced plans for an ambitious €650 million overhaul of its brewing activities in Ireland.
This involved closing long-established breweries in Kilkenny and Dundalk by the end of 2012 and reducing capacity at St James’s Gate.
The proceeds from the sale of land at these sites was to be used to help fund a “super brewery” in Leixlip, Co Kildare.
Part of the land for the Leixlip brewery was being acquired from members of the Guinness family. It would have been the biggest capital investment to date by Diageo.
The plan was put on ice in January 2010 due to the impact of the recession on beer sales and the collapse in the property market.
The company has yet to indicate its intentions in relation to the super brewery.