Dublin To Get First 100m Plus Building

What will be Dublin's tallest building, Heuston Gate, has been given the thumbs up by an Board Pleanála, the local planning board. The largely residential 32 floor tower which has been designed by Paul Keogh Architects for the Office of Public Works to sit on a site near Heuston Station and reach 117m to roof and 134m to the tip of the spire.

It will contain 197 apartments spread over 28 storeys, an observation deck on the top floor open to the public, and a museum, offices, health club and restaurant on the bottom three floors.

Once complete in 2007 it will be Dublin's first building to break the 100 metre mark - the current tallest barely pushes through the 60m barrier. Tall buildings have been proposed in Dublin before but they have always failed to get through the planning process thanks to either official opposition where for many years there was a deliberate desire to keep Dublin lowrise, or from locals who opposed large developments on their doorstep.

The path of Heuston Gate through the planning process was hardly smooth and has certainly raised some eyebrows. The tower was rejected by the planning inspector of the council, however the planning board voted 5 to 2 in favour of it going ahead deliberately contradicting the inspector and praising the design quality employed in the project.

Dublin, as befits it's status as one of the fastest growing cities in Europe, has seen a flurry of tall buildings proposed lately although this rush of new projects has created concerns amongst many that Dublin is aping the London of the 60s and 70s where towers were built all over the place with little thought for clustering. This criticism in terms of Heuston Gate may be defused somewhat as the project follows through sensible planning theories of building tall buildings near major transport interchanges, something that the planned tower at Tara Street Station also achieves.

It should be remembered though that Dublin is very much at the early stages of evolution in terms of a modern skyline with developers competing to make a particularly area more attractive -in the end a cluster will inevitably develop and Heuston Gate, with it's close proximity to the railway terminus is as good a place as any.