The group, led by Ulick McEvaddy, has entered pre-planning talks with the local authority and intends to lodge a full planning application for the facility in February, according to well-informed sources.
The proposal to build four large cargo buildings – which together would be close to the size of Amazon’s huge distribution hub near Baldonnel – marks a new step towards a long-talked-about bid by the private landowners to extend Dublin Airport to the west by utilising the privately owned 260-acre landbank.
The cargo hub plan, which would be served by the existing road network, is seen by its backers as the first phase of their much bigger aspiration to build an entirely new western campus for Dublin Airport.
This could include new car parks, hotels, other aviation-related activities – such as a sustainable aviation fuel hub – and, ultimately, a third terminal.
The proposal has long been controversial. DAA has consistently dismissed it and argued that such a development is not needed and that it has enough space on the existing campus to grow the airport.
DAA last month submitted a major planning proposal to expand the airport
In 2023, when the land was placed on the market for sale, it appeared that McEvaddy – who was not available for comment – and his fellow landowners had given up, after decades of seeking backing to develop the lands themselves with backing from a Dubai-based fund.
The landowners are understood to have had previous engagement with DAA about a potential sale but failed to agree on a price. At the time, McEvaddy dismissed a reported bid by DAA to buy the land for €75m as “derisory”.
Even now, despite the cargo hub plan, the landbank remains on sale – so the move to engage with Fingal County Council on the planning proposal to develop a cargo hub will be dismissed by some as a way to drive up the site value.
But sources say work is ongoing on an environmental impact assessment as part of a plan to make a larger application for other elements of the western campus plan.
Backers say it complies with the Fingal Development Plan and the Dublin Airport Local Area Plan.
The lands owned by the McEvaddy-led group
The proposed cargo units would include car parking for 500 cars and 80 trucks, as part of the first phase of the development.
The DAA last month submitted a major planning proposal to expand the airport so it can handle 40 million passengers per annum.
It proposed the demolition of the airport’s two existing cargo terminals as well as of a flight catering facility, totalling 200,000sqft.
Those facilities are to be removed to make way for a new passenger pier from Terminal Two and the expansion of the existing US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) pre-clearance facility,
New cargo facilities are not included and, according to sources, the backers of the proposed cargo-handling facility to the west of the airport believe it can fill any potential gap.
