Property (Architecture): Redeveloping Dun Laoghaire baths - creating a splash or an idea that's dead in the water? - Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council has invited proposals for the redevelopment of the baths. Edel Morgan canvasses locals for their ide.

(From The Irish Times)

On paper it reads like a developer's dream: a sea front site in a highly desirable location with huge redevelopment potential.

Yet Dun Laoghaire baths has been in development limbo for well over a decade. Lying idle and allowed to deteriorate, it appears nobody knew quite what to do with them.

Its fate is now to be decided by Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, which believes a revival of interest in health spas and lucrative tax incentives on offer may be the key to its revival.

Writer Siobhan Campbell remembers Dun Laoghaire baths as a place of extremes where she learned to 'shiver without showing it' while restaurateur Peter Caviston thought it was 'a great place' as a kid.

When patronage declined in the 1980s and the E145,000 a year cost of running the baths became prohibitive it was closed and later vandalised.

Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has invited proposals for the redevelopment of the derelict baths. It has suggested 'a mixed use scheme …