Plan for derelict Portlaoise hotel going on public display

Plans for the redevelopment of a derelict Portlaoise hotel into council apartments, are soon going on display.

The former County Hotel on the Main Street, once a social dance spot for the town, is waiting six years to be reconstructed into 10 apartments by Clúid Housing, for tenants of Laois County Council.

Eight of them will have one bedroom, and two will have two bedrooms, aimed at single older people and small families who won't need cars for the town centre accommodation.

The building has a sad history of dereliction and fire. The front of it is listed as a protected structure, stopping progress to refurbish it for the past five years.

It had shut down several decades ago and fallen into dereliction. It was damaged by a fire before being bought up from the owner by Laois County Council in 2018. 

The council's Director for Planning and Housing, Angela McEvoy, gave an update at their monthly meeting on May 27.

"We have the planning documents ready to put on display very shortly, in the next fortnight.  We were waiting on a survey to be resurveyed and that's done now," she said.

Cllr Thomasina Connell had raised the subject at the meeting.

"We have a huge number of people looking for one and two bed apartments. I am glad to see the county hotel will get some. People are asking me when it will be done. It's a site of dereliction on our Main Street. This cannot continue," she had said.

The council has spent public money trying to maintain the facade. First with scaffolding and a walkway to stop the broken roof from falling onto pedestrians, then with a neater barrier along the roof. The commissioned a public mural by street artist Ciaran Dunlevy that depicts the legendary Fionn of the Fianna growing up in nearby Ballyfin.

The cost of the refurb job is not yet confirmed, but the council said in 2023 that Clúid had to revise it upwards due to "significant challenges" with the site, which has no rear access for construction.