The construction tender for the €170 million Boland’s Quay development at the historic Boland’s Mills site in the south Dublin docklands is due to be issued within the next four weeks.

Sisk, Bennett Construction and BAM (amongst others) are expected to be in the running to secure one of the largest building contracts in the State.

Mark Reynolds of Savills, the Nama-appointed receiver to the site, will officially launch the marketing of the project this evening.

He expects a main contractor to be appointed by the end of July with a view to being on-site at the start of September.

This would suggest the development could be finished in the third quarter of 2018.

Demolition on-site has been underway for two months to remove the 1950s-built silos, with this work due for completion in June 2016. In addition, a specialist conservation contractor is to be appointed by the end of April to restore the protected mill buildings which will be converted for commercial and residential use.

Designed by Dublin architectural practice Burke Kennedy Doyle, Boland’s Quay will include three new landmark buildings, with the tallest rising to 53 metres. There will also be a 15-storey apartment block rising to 47.8 metres and a 13-storey office block topping out at 49 metres.

Boland’s Quay, which will accommodate 2,500 workers, will comprise some 36,851sq m (397,000sq ft) of office, residential, retail and cultural space. This breaks down at 25,455sq m (274,000sq ft) of office space, 41 waterfront apartments, and retail and commercial space of 1,394sq m (15,000sq ft).

A new pedestrian bridge, two new civic plazas with water frontage to Grand Canal Dock and a cultural/community space of 549sq m (5,910sq ft) are also included.

The principal historic buildings on the site are two six-storey stone warehouse buildings dating from the 1830s, as well as a number of buildings on Barrow Street dating from the 1870s.

Special Development Zone

Boland’s Quay was approved by Dublin City Council in July 2015 following receipt of a planning application in December 2014.

Michael Cleary from the Boland’s Quay Development Group, which is a collaboration between Mr Reynolds and property development consultancy Cleary McCabe & Associates, said the SDZ “has enabled us to advance this project in a very short period of time, and the project delivery team are progressing full steam ahead with the development”.

“On completion in 2018 this significant construction project will become a landmark office development in the resurgent Dublin Docklands area,” said Mr Cleary.

Nama is making €170 million available for the Boland’s Quay development and has committed to funding all construction work. Mr Reynolds said Boland’s Quay will be “the most significant construction project Dublin has seen over the past 10 years”.

Plans to build three 12- to 16-storey office buildings and a boutique hotel on the site were rejected in 2006 on the grounds they would be out of scale with the area.

The size of that planned development, at 40,647sq m (437,524sq ft) was 9 per cent larger than the Boland’s Quay scheme now about to be built.

Boland’s Mill was then owned by developer Seán Kelly’s Benton Properties and a Treasury Holdings company. It was sold by the food group IAWS, which had used it as a grain store for many years, to Mr Kelly in early 2004 for €42 million.