Parkwest Plaza Office-to-Residential Retrofit Development Complete

Office-to-Residential Conversion Development Breathes New Life into Unused Office Block

The Park West Plaza development contains 86 apartments and is one of the first large scale conversion projects of office accommodation to residential homes in the country.

Tuath Housing, in partnership with Dublin City council, has recently delivered 86 social housing homes at the Plaza building in Park West business park. The former office block, which lay vacant for over 20 years, underwent a major redevelopment which included the conversion of two four-storey office blocks into a five-storey development with 86 apartments. The office complex, which will become home to more than 200 people, is the result of €26 million redevelopment undertaken by Harcourt Developments on behalf of Tuath Housing.

To date, all 86 homes have been allocated by Tuath to people from Dublin City Council’s housing waiting list. Tuath was delighted to be work in partnership with the Council and developers, Harcourt Developments, on this unique conversion project. The new homes were funded via a mix of Capital Advanced Leasing Facility (CALF) and Capital Assistance Scheme (CAS) funding from the Department of Housing.  Private finance was secured through AIB’s Social Investment Fund, who also partly financed a previous development that saw Tuath deliver 83 homes in Clondalkin in November 2020.

The Parkwest development is the second conversion project which Tuath has undertaken in recent years. In Cork City, the retrofit of an office block at Springville House, on the Blackrock Road, will provide 35 homes for social tenants looking to downsize. 31 apartments will be built in the existing structure along with four bungalows on the grounds. Sustainability is a “core principle” of Tuath’s development strategy, said  Tuath Communications Manager Fiona Egan, “and one of the most sustainable forms of housing provision is working with buildings that already exist”. She said the project was a “great example of the repurposing model” and “something we hope to replicate”.