Diageo, the owner of Guinness, is planning to redevelop part of the brewer’s Dublin site, renovating the historic buildings in a scheme to create offices, shops, hotels and housing.

On Wednesday Diageo unveiled preliminary plans for the five-hectare (12.6 acre) development within the St James’s Gate brewery site, which includes the first Guinness vat house, built in 1798, and Brewery Room No 2, the biggest brewhouse in the world during the early 20th century.

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Diageo plans to retain ownership of some historic structures within the proposed St James’s Gate Quarter, including the famous brewery gate and residence of the company’s founder, Arthur Guinness, whose stout has been brewed on the 20-hectare site west of Dublin city centre since 1759.

“Our vision will be that this is a dynamic urban quarter with a combination of residential, commercial, leisure – which is a viable, sustainable development,” said Oliver Loomes, country director for Diageo Ireland. “Social housing will of course be a part of that because any large development has to have it. We have got a long-term relationship with the Iveagh trust and our ambition is that we would work with the trust to have as our social housing partner in this project.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Victorian brewhouse 2, at St James’s Gate, Dublin. Photograph: Guinness

The trust was founded by Edward Cecil Guinness, great grandson of Arthur Guinness, and was responsible for clearing slums around St Patrick’s Cathedral in the 19th century and building flats for poor urban residents close to the brewery.

At the St James’s Gate Quarter site office space could account for 63,000 sq metres, retail units 5,000, and hotel and leisure, 22,000. Within a 48,000-sq-metre residential area there could be 500 homes, says a feasibility study submitted to Dublin city council.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest View of Experimental Brewhouse, built in 1904. Photograph: Guinness

Loomes said it was too early to give an exact number of how many social houses or flats would be allocated to the overall housing side of the quarter. “Overall it would be a third residential, a third commercial and a third leisure,” he said.

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Rising residential property prises and soaring rents – even a one bedroom prefab room in Dublin costs €1,300 (£1,152) a month – have exacerbated the city’s housing crisis. Housing activists claim the influx of big hi-tech firms into Dublin and their well paid employees has led to massive spikes in rent and forced residents out of parts of the city.

Diageo rejects any suggestion that the creation of a new hi-tech industrial hub on part of its south inner city estate would have a similar effect on rent and house prices. The company said it would hold consultative meetings with residents, living in the nearby Liberties district, about the proposed project - locally dubbed “Guinness Town”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A worker pushes a barrow containing malt samples at St James Gate brewery in postwar period. Photograph: Hulton Deutsch/Corbis via Getty Images

Diageo has hired Deloitte Real Estate to secure a development partner for the project. More detailed plans are to be announced following a tender process expected to take 18 months.