The Grand Canal Docks first opened in 1796, built to a design by
William Jessop. Before this development, from medieval times the area was associated with lepers, as recorded in some of the street names such as
Misery Hill and
Lazer Lane. At the time they were the world's largest docks. They fell into decline within just a few decades, due mostly to reduced canal usage with the arrival of the railways. The landscape was dominated by Dublin Gas Company's mountains of black coal, along with chemical factories, tar pits, bottle factories and iron foundries. However, bakers and millers maintained business along the southern edge of the inner basin. By the 1960s, the Grand Canal Docks were almost completely derelict.
Regeneration mixed-use development, including several 19th century warehouses. Around 1987 it was decided that Hanover Quay was too toxic to sell. Regeneration began in 1998, when
Bord Gáis sold the
Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) the former gasworks site located in the area between Sir John Rogerson's Quay and Hanover Quay, for €19 million. The DDDA spent €52 million decontaminating the land, even though the likely return was estimated at just €40 million. The decontamination took place under the supervision of the
Environmental Protection Agency, between 2002 and 2006. The process involved constructing an underground wall eight metres deep around the affected area, and the contaminated soil being dug out and removed. By the time the decontamination was finished, an inflated property bubble and increased demand in the area (brought on, in part, by the decision by
Google to set up its European headquarters nearby), allowed the authority to sell the land for €300 million. The DDDA injected some of its new funds into the area's infrastructure including seats, street lighting, and civic spaces. In the wake of the
dot-com bubble collapse from 1999 to 2001,
IDA Ireland's director of operations in California, Dermot Tuohy, made moves to bring the at-the-time budding tech companies,
PayPal,
eBay, Overture (which would later become part of
Yahoo!), and
Google to Dublin. In 2002, Google executives agreed to investigate the possibility of opening operations in Dublin. 's European headquarters, the Montevetro buildingThey viewed the
Digital Hub in the city centre west, which now houses 900 people and is the location for the European headquarters of companies such as
Eventbrite and
Etsy. Google's property advisors at the time also alerted them to an alternative location at Grand Canal Dock, identifying the potential of a number of buildings on Barrow Street owned by developer Liam Carroll. Within walking distance from the city centre, the location was seen by the company as having the right mix of factors to attract the type of employee they wanted in Dublin. Google's California offices encouraged a college campus-style atmosphere, something achievable in the Grand Canal Dock location. The visitors decided that once the building, which was still under construction, was complete, they would rent 60,000sq ft of Gordon House on Barrow Street, which they moved into in 2004. It was a choice subsequently seen by those in the IDA as a seismic shift for investment in Dublin. The agency, and many others including senior Google employees, felt the decision was directly responsible for many other
Silicon Valley names, such as
Twitter and
Facebook, choosing to set up shop nearby. In November 2013, a new fast-track planning scheme was approved by Dublin City Council to allow for docklands buildings of up to 22 floors in height – 50% higher than Dublin's tallest building at the time. The
Docklands Strategic Development Zone (SDZ) Planning Scheme gave council planners the power to make decisions that cannot be appealed to An Bord Pleanála, eliminating a source of potential delays for developers. The SDZ represented the first major planning initiative since the 2012 decision to wind up the
Docklands Authority, but to retain an appropriate fast track planning framework to complete the Docklands project. Dublin City Council, which took over the Docklands Authority's powers, was determined to encourage the continued development of the 66 hectares, north and south of the river, that comprised the new planning zone. The plan identified five specific development hubs:
Spencer Dock,
Point Village, Grand Canal Dock,
Britain Quay and
Boland's Mill. One-third of the overall docklands area – 22 hectares – was earmarked for development. Buildings left uncompleted since the
2008 financial crisis were since completed. Most notably, the former
Anglo Irish Bank building, the unfinished skeleton of which was an icon of the
2008 financial crisis, was finished in 2017 by its new owner, the
Central Bank of Ireland. ==Sites control and planning==