Five-star hotel to create 250 new jobs

Around 150 building jobs – and a further 100 full and part-time jobs – could be created in the construction of a new upmarket hotel in the city, the Galway City Tribune has learned.

Padraic and Martina McHale from Clonbur bought the former Connacht Laundry site on St Helen’s Street in ‘the West’ last summer for an estimated €2m – a fraction of the €30m selling price in 2006.

Through a development company called Welmary Properties, they have now sought more time from Galway City Council to build the €10 million hotel which was approved by An Bórd Pleanála in 2009 but never built because of the economic collapse.

The permission is set to expire later this month, unless the five-year Extension of Duration is granted. The McHales have said they expected the project to be completed by 2018.

An industry source told the Galway City Tribune: “For a project of that scale, you would be taking about at least 150 jobs during construction and another 100 full-time and part-time staff when the hotel is up-and-running. It would take 16 to 18 months to complete.”

The hotel was designed in 2007 with a five-star status in mind by the previous site owners, Noel Burke from Taylor’s Hill who has since moved to Northampton, and John Staunton from Shrule. They estimated the hotel would have cost around €50m to build and fit-out at the height of the construction boom.

Receviers were subsequently appointed to that company, which left the future of the hotel project in doubt, until the McHales became involved.

The McHales – whose family own McHale Engineering in Mayo – feature in the Sunday Times Rich List, with an estimated personal wealth of more than €80 million.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.