New hotel and restaurant is planned for historic but derelict Kildare building

Plans for a new hotel and restaurant at a historic but derelict site in Naas have been made and are about to be lodged with Kildare County Council.

The owner of the Market House, adjacent to the Grand Canal in Naas, says proposals for a boutique hotel and eatery have been drawn up and will be with KCC before the end of the month.

Pat Keane, who developed the Hanged Man’s pub and restaurant in Milltown, Newbridge, said he has had discussions with KCC and he wants to build a hotel with up to a dozen bedrooms and a restaurant.

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The plan is for a “boutique hotel”, a term used to describe small capacity enterprises located in fashionable urban settings.

"The plans are almost ready,” he said, adding that he hopes to start work once permission comes through.

Mr Keane has owned Market House for some time and in 2018 KCC granted planning permission for a restaurant and pub there.

That proposal envisaged new two and three storey extensions and the entire building was to have a total gross floor area of just over 1,000 square metres.

When KCC previously granted permission for a pub/restaurant to the Keanes in April 2009, it sought levies totalling €351,500, which, along with the recession, was among the reasons the plans did not proceed at that time.

Planning permission was subsequently extended in May 2014 but this expired in April 2017.

Market House is over 200 years old and was built by John Bourke, the fourth Lord Mayo.

It is a protected structure.