A one-time hotel bigwig is rebuilding his empire with this Dublin guesthouse
Choice Hotel Group founder Frankie Whelehan has permission for a new 40-bed hotel.
A FORMER HOTEL tycoon from the Celtic Tiger era has secured planning permission to build a new guesthouse in Dublin city.
Cork-based hotelier Frankie Whelehan is the founder and former head of the Choice Hotel Group and was a well-known figure in the tourism industry during the 2000s.
Two years ago he left Choice Hotels – a chain that included Dublin’s Gibson Hotel – after the firm sold a number of its properties to Dalata, the operator of the Clayton and Maldron hotel brands in Ireland.
After seeing his hotel empire dwindle since the economic downturn, a Whelehan firm, Chesway Group, applied for planning permission last year to develop a 40-bed guesthouse on Harcourt Terrace in south Dublin.
The firm’s proposal involved modifications to a previous application approved in early 2017, including construction of a second-floor extension to accommodate two additional bedrooms and some exterior work to the existing protected structure.
Earlier this month, Dublin council gave the all-clear to the application for the townhouse-style hotel on the site of a former nursing home.
However, the local authority said construction should take place under the supervision of a conservation expert to preserve the protected building.
Frankie Whelehan
Troubled times
Whelehan was nominated as an industry category finalist in the EY Entrepreneur of the Year competition in 2005.
At its peak, his Choice Hotel Group had two dozen hotels on its books that employed nearly 2,000 people during the Celtic Tiger years.
Whelehan’s firm operated its properties under various brands and was the master franchise holder in Ireland for the Clarion and Comfort Inn brands.
However, the financial crash left Whelehan with multimillion-euro debts to State bad bank Nama.
In 2013, his firm agreed a restructuring plan that would see it pay back Nama nearly €10 million over a five-year period. Three years later he left the business.
After he exited Choice Hotels in 2016, he announced plans for significant investment in the Montenotte Hotel in Cork city – a property fully owned by the Whelehan family.
The €5 million project involved a refurbishment of the hotel, development of a new function space, bar, restaurant and a sun terrace looking out over the River Lee.
The most recent accounts for Chesway Limited show the firm made a profit of more than €12 million during 2016 after it gained €22.2 million on the disposal of some assets.
