Plans are to be lodged for a boutique hotel on the site of the former Ulster Bank on Dublin’s Lower Baggot Street. It will include a “speakeasy” bar in the former bank vaults in the building’s basement.The project, by former Jones Engineering boss Jim Curley’s firm, Dairy Hill Property Ltd, also include a 93-seater restaurant and bar to be located in the former banking hall on the ground floor. A Curley family investment vehicle, Astogo Holdings, bought the 8,500 sq ft building in October 2024.The property had a guide price of €2.5 million and it was reported at the time that the sales price was slightly above that. In addition to the former bank premises, the Curley family also acquired the three adjoining properties on Lower Pembroke Street on an off-market basis.The plans by Dairy Hill Property Ltd – controlled by Jim Curley and Janet Curley – involve a redevelopment across the former Ulster Bank building, which is a protected structure, and properties at 33, 34, 35, 36 and 37 Pembroke Street Lower.The published statutory planning notice states that the development would involve the conservation, restoration, partial demolition, extension and change of use of 130 Baggot Street from a vacant bank to a boutique hotel, restaurant and speakeasy bar.The scheme involves the demolition of the buildings at 33-37 Pembroke Street Lower – previously approved by the council in 2021 – and to construct in their place a six storey over basement extension to use as part of the hotel development.The notice also said that the boutique hotel would also include a private residents lounge, spa and a cafe unit on the ground floor of 33 Pembroke Street.Mr Curley was chief executive of Jones Engineering Group from 1978 until the sale of the company in 2022. The company was acquired in 2022 by Texas-based investment firm Cathexis for a sum understood to be in excess of €1 billion and Mr Curley was the company’s second-largest shareholder at the time.The most recent accounts for the Curleys’s Dairy Hill Property Ltd show that it had investment properties with a book value of €34.38 million at the end of 2024. The company’s activities were financed by loans of €38.3 million from a connected Curley company and parent firm, Burnham Investments Ltd.