What CBRE put on the market
CBRE has brought a hotel leasing opportunity at 38-44 Clarendon Street in Dublin 2 to market. Aviva Life & Pensions Ireland DAC is the developer. Hospitality Ireland reported the mandate on 12 October 2026.
The scheme is a seven-storey-over-basement building with 184 bedrooms, plus a restaurant, a bar and commercial space. Four Georgian buildings at 52-55 South William Street form the second half, with commercial use at ground floor and basement and 10 apartment suites on the upper floors.
The Irish Times ran the mandate on 7 October 2026. Green Street News ran it the same morning. Both print the two frontages. The Irish Times adds floor areas of 364 square metres of commercial space and 864 square metres in total.
Seven storeys over a basement
One hundred and eighty-four bedrooms across seven storeys and a basement puts the scheme at the scale of a full-service city hotel. CBRE calls it a prime, turnkey development.
St Stephen’s Green sits 0.86 km from the address on a walking route measured against OpenStreetMap. The same measurement puts Grand Canal Dock at 2.84 km, Aviva Stadium at 3.73 km, the IFSC at 3.88 km, the Convention Centre Dublin at 3.97 km, Croke Park at 4.76 km and the 3Arena at 4.77 km. Hospitality Ireland describes the whole set as a short walk. An operator pricing a corporate account should work from the measured figures.
Four Georgian buildings and ten apartment suites
The South William Street component returns four Georgian buildings to use. Ground floor and basement carry commercial space. Ten apartment suites sit above. One scheme holds a hotel, a retail line and a residential line.
CBRE markets the hotel. No published document states whether the suites and the commercial units fall inside the operator’s remit. That boundary belongs in the lease conversation and in the pre-opening budget.
No consent in the record
The Irish Times attaches “subject to planning permission” to the scheme. Hospitality Ireland’s copy does not. No source reached for this piece carries a grant, an application number or a decision date.
Dublin City Council’s weekly planning lists for Electoral Area 1 (South East) carry no application at 38-44 Clarendon Street from Aviva, from Friends First or from any other party across weeks 29 and 32 to 36 of 2026. The council’s online planning portal answered HTTP 403 to an automated request, so the reading covers six weekly lists.
An operator who signs today signs ahead of a consent. The delivery date, the fit-out contribution and the opening date sit downstream of that decision.
The site’s path from Friends First
Friends First bought the property in 2016. The Irish Times reported the transaction on 2 November 2016 at €30 million for nine retail and office properties inside the Madrid Portfolio, an assembly attributed to Bernard McNamara. The balance of the portfolio went to the Doyle family, owners of the adjoining Westbury hotel.
Aviva Life & Pensions UK bought Friends First from Achmea on 31 May 2018. The company took the Aviva Life & Pensions Ireland name on 29 March 2019. The DAC suffix marks a Designated Activity Company.
The purchase precedes the leasing mandate by a decade. The scheme redevelops the Clarendon Street frontage and refurbishes four buildings on South William Street.
The agent’s demand case
CBRE rests the leasing case on MetroLink, office take-up and visitor numbers. Alexandra Sheeran, a director at the firm, says the planned St Stephen’s Green station will improve connectivity to Dublin Airport, the city centre and the wider transport network. CBRE expects that link to support demand from international leisure, corporate and group guests.
MetroLink’s own route list names O’Connell Street, Tara Street, St Stephen’s Green and Charlemont as the city-centre stations. MetroLink is a planned line.
The same statement puts record office take-up by multinationals and rising visitor numbers behind Dublin hotel demand. Both are CBRE’s claims. Neither carries a figure in the copy.
The price signal from a paywalled headline
Green Street News put a €100 million figure on the project in its 7 October 2026 headline. The body sits behind a paywall. Neither the Irish Times copy nor the Hospitality Ireland copy carries the number.
Divided across 184 bedrooms, €100 million works out at €543,478 a room. That is arithmetic on two published numbers.
What a prospective operator should ask
Five items sit outside the published record. The lease term and the rent basis. The developer’s delivery date. The fit-out contribution and the FF&E responsibility. The brand approval path with Aviva. The planning decision date.
Two more sit inside it. The suites and the commercial units need a stated operator remit. The demand case needs a number behind “booming visitor numbers”.
Sheeran framed the offer for Hospitality Ireland: “This exceptional hotel development presents a fantastic opportunity for astute operators to secure a prime, turnkey development in Dublin’s most sought-after location.” She added: “With its unbeatable prestige and potential for innovative design, this project offers the chance for a visionary hotelier to collaborate with the developer and create an incredible hotel in one of the city’s most exclusive areas.”