Hotel and pub entrepreneur Louis Fitzgerald is understood to be planning to transform a car park he owns near the Jervis Centre in Dublin 1 into a new retail development.

Fitzgerald has been running the site as a car park after buying it in 2008 for an undisclosed fee.

Hibernian Autopark Ltd, a Fitzgerald company, lodged a planning application for the project with Dublin City Council last week.

Fitzgerald had considered building a 200-bed hotel on the site.

Fitzgerald owns the nearby Arlington Hotel on Bachelors Walk, which he bought from Cyril Mulligan and property investor Tom Quinn in 2005. He also owns the adjoining Bachelors Inn, which he bought for €7m.

The 190-bedroom Louis Fitzgerald Hotel on the Naas Road opened in 2007.

Fitzgerald is the largest publican in Ireland, with more than 20 pubs in his portfolio, including the Baggot Inn, the Stag's Head, the Grand Central and Kehoe's in Dublin city centre, and the Quays pubs in Temple Bar and in Galway.

His other interests include a stake in Sunderland Football Club and several development sites in the greater Dublin area.