{"id":347287,"date":"2026-03-15T09:39:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T09:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/347287\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T09:39:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T09:39:17","slug":"building-homes-over-the-shop-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/347287\/","title":{"rendered":"Building homes over the shop \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Converting spaces above shops into homes <\/a>is often touted as one of the solutions to the housing crisis, <\/a>but how easy is that to do in practice? <\/p>\n

Jas Rait and his wife, Tanya Comber, took on the challenge when they converted and extended their premises on Dublin\u2019s Camden Street to provide three apartments above and behind their shop and office. They run their cloud computing business and shop from the building, which is more than 200 years old.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t all plain sailing. The building is constrained on all fronts. It has no rear access, it is surrounded by three neighbouring properties, and its upstairs apartment was cold and dingy. Now the town house contains three bright, warm and energy-efficient apartments, all with outdoor spaces.<\/p>\n

The couple first rented the premises for Right Click \u2013 their computer business shop \u2013 in 2001 and bought the building 10 years later. As the business grew, they opened Right Cloud on the premises to provide cloud services and business support. With a staff of eight, they realised they would have to reconfigure their retail and office space to provide a better working environment. They also decided to tackle the upstairs project.<\/p>\n

Given the age of the building, they knew they would need a lot of advice before embarking on a project like this. \u201cWe had architects, quantity surveyors, fire safety consultants, engineers, steel consultants \u2013 you have to have those people on board if you want to do a project like this,\u201d Tanya says. Their architect, Ken Meehan, had worked on many conservation projects, which gave them peace of mind, and their builder, Conor Grealis, remained calm in the face of a challenging build on a busy thoroughfare with no side or back entrance to bring equipment through.<\/p>\n

Construction work began in October 2024 and involved adding a four-storey extension to the rear and a new floor to the main building. The three apartments, which became available for renting in February, can now accommodate 14 people.<\/p>\n

When they began the work, the building was in dire need of revamping. The apartment over the shop had four bedrooms, \u201cbut really it was three bedrooms with a tiny little room that would only fit a small bed, and it was falling apart\u201d, Tanya recalls. \u201cEvery time there was a storm, we would go up to see if the light was coming through the roof. There was nothing under the old slate tiles.\u201d If the tenants used the washing machine, the ground-floor ceiling would leak. And there was no need to guess what was for dinner upstairs, because the food smells wafted downwards into the shop and office.<\/p>\n

The lack of insulation meant it was also very cold. \u201cWe used to have a heating system that would go on at 5am and barely get the office warmed by 9am,\u201d says Jas. He doesn\u2019t know what the Ber was, but imagines it was too low to even register on the scale. \u201cAnd now we\u2019ve fully insulated the building and gone to B1.\u201d<\/p>\n

The original apartment has been transformed into a spacious 3,000sq ft three-bedroom apartment. A two-bedroom penthouse apartment with views across the city and another two-bedroom duplex apartment round off this development.<\/p>\n

\"LivingLiving over the shop on Camden Street: The apartments developed by Tanya Comber and Jas Rait. Photograph: Alan Betson \"TheThe workspace beneath the recently renovated apartments. Photograph: Alan Betson \"TheThe kitchen-dining area of one of the apartments renovated by Tanya Comber and Jas Rait. Photograph: Alan Betson \"LivingLiving over the shop on Camden Street: The apartments developed by Tanya Comber and Jas Rait. Photograph: Alan Betson <\/p>\n

Despite the hustle and bustle of the street below, the noise does not carry to the apartments upstairs. \u201cIt\u2019s actually really peaceful here, completely Zen,\u201d Tanya says. \u201cWhen we designed these apartments, we agreed that we wouldn\u2019t want to build anything that we wouldn\u2019t be prepared to live in ourselves. We wanted outdoor space and decent rooms. In the long run, I think it\u2019s damaging for people if they don\u2019t have access to outside.\u201d All the apartments have balconies, but the penthouse has the largest outdoor space.<\/p>\n

Garrett Dillon Kitchens in Dungarvan provided the eye-catching kitchens, delivering on his clients\u2019 request to avoid bland cream kitchen units. \u201cWe just said, let\u2019s go a bit funky. This is Camden Street after all,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The tiles came from XO Tile around the corner and the floors were provided by Brooks, the builders\u2019 suppliers in Bluebell. \u201cA lot of residential people are afraid to go to the builders\u2019 merchants, and actually, you get really, really good value,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

They had considered a heat pump but decided against it because of the space the equipment would take up, and they reasoned that the apartments would require very little heat because of the generous insulation. <\/p>\n

After 25 years on Camden Street, they are fiercely loyal to the area and would like to see better incentives to encourage shop owners to convert their vacant space to provide homes. They availed of the government\u2019s Living City initiative, which provides tax breaks for buildings in a special regeneration area to provide housing. But they say it\u2019s not for someone who is looking to make a quick profit. Under the initiative, they received a \u20ac200,000 tax break \u2013 the maximum amount of tax relief available at the time \u2013 but they say that went nowhere near the cost of the project. The maximum allowable was increased to \u20ac300,000 in October\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n

The Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant has also been made more attractive to people wishing to bring vacant above-the-shop space into use as homes. That scheme offers grants of up to \u20ac140,000 to convert the space, depending on the number of units being created, but any grant received must be deducted from the qualifying expenditure for tax relief in the Living City initiative.<\/p>\n

\"LivingLiving over the shop on Camden Street: The apartments developed by Tanya Comber and Jas Rait. Photograph: Alan Betson \"LivingLiving over the shop on Camden Street: The apartments developed by Tanya Comber and Jas Rait. Photograph: Alan Betson \"LivingLiving over the shop on Camden Street: The apartments developed by Tanya Comber and Jas Rait. Photograph: Alan Betson <\/p>\n

Jas says the escalating price of materials and cost of labour means that their project would not be economically viable if they were starting the work today. \u201cWe\u2019ve been here for so long that for us to stay here and invest for the next few decades is fine. But if you\u2019re an investor and you\u2019ve got 8 per cent [interest] on commercial finance, and you\u2019re looking to do this to flip it, then it doesn\u2019t make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

They believe their project shows how high-quality, energy-efficient urban housing can be successfully delivered, but say small landlords need more encouragement to take the plunge. \u201cUnfortunately, the sums don\u2019t add up,\u201d he says. \u201cThere are a lot of people sitting on would-be brilliant projects because it doesn\u2019t make financial sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

But they are happy that they have secured the future of the building and helped ease the demand for rental properties in a very small way. \u201cWe are here for good and we are not going anywhere,\u201d she says. \u201cThere is still a great sense of community here on the street and we know so many people. We love this place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LivingLiving over the shop on Camden Street: The apartments developed by Tanya Comber and Jas Rait. Photograph: Alan Betson \"LivingLiving over the shop on Camden Street: The apartments developed by Tanya Comber and Jas Rait. Photograph: Alan Betson \"LivingLiving over the shop on Camden Street: The apartments developed by Tanya Comber and Jas Rait. Photograph: Alan Betson <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Converting spaces above shops into homes is often touted as one of the solutions to the housing crisis,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[11423,72,158334,61,12283,60,4310,45209],"class_list":["post-347287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-apartment","tag-business","tag-camden-street","tag-ie","tag-interiors","tag-ireland","tag-property","tag-property-clinic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}