Central Plaza

Central Plaza, also known as the Central Bank of Ireland Building for its former tenant, is an office building on Dame Street in Temple Bar, Dublin. It was the headquarters of the Central Bank of Ireland from 1979 to 2017. It is Ireland's only suspended structure building, with its 8 floors hanging from central concrete cores. Each floor was built on the ground and then raised into place. It was controversial for being out of scale with its surroundings and for being constructed taller than approved. , the building was undergoing renovations including the addition of a rooftop venue and observation deck. History The Central Bank of Ireland originally proposed a new headquarters on Dame Street in Temple Bar in 1967. The proposal was immediately opposed as it would entail demolition of the site's 18th-century Commercial Buildings constructed in 1799 and which for a period housed the Irish Stock Exchange. Before the Commercial Buildings, the area was historically the site of Fownes Court, a medieval mansion owned by Sir William Fownes, 1st Baronet. It was later the site of the first maternity hospital in Great Britain or Ireland in 1742, but this was later moved to the Rotunda Hospital in 1745. Until 1783, it was also the site of Dublin's General Post Office until this moved to a dedicated building on the other side of College Green.