Square Deal site in Cork bought for €5 million by student accommodation company

CORK City’s Square Deal site has been bought for about €5 million by an international student accommodation company, understood to be making its first foray into Ireland’s increasingly competitive student apartment market.

The sale via Savills is now likely to see planning permission sought for 200-300 student beds on Washington Street to meet enormous demand for purpose-built student accommodation in the city.

Interest in the profile property, part of which is protected, was also shown for hotel use, as offices, for private apartments and mixed uses, including residential with retail. However, most competitive interest came from those seeking to build student apartments, given the high levels of current and future demand: already, private companies control 2,300 student beds in Cork, and that number is set to double to meet UCC and CIT demand and a demographic bulge.

The just-sold Square Deal site is 200m from the former Muskerry service station site, which was acquired by UK-based Ziggurat, providers of student apartments, which sold for c €3.5m, also for a 0.8 acre site.

Estate agent Peter O’Meara of Savills confirmed the Square Deal sale, for a sum under their €6m guide, and said it marked the arrival of a yet another new student operator to the Irish market: already active are Hines, Global Student Accommodation, Ziggurat, the Student Housing Company and Hattington Student Housing. Most demand is for Dublin sites, followed by Cork and Galway.

Ziggurat Student Investment Fund this month cleared the planning process having sought 205 student beds in a new Cork city building of five storeys albeit (reduced from the six applied for) beside the River Lee hotel. A previous application to have the Muskerry/Esso site (previously associated with Reardens publican and developer Paul Montgomery, who built student accommodation at Victoria Cross in the early 2000s) revert to filling station use was objected to by the River Lee Hotel.

Ziggurat last year said it aimed to invest up to €75m delivering 1,000 student beds in Cork city alone, close to UCC, in the next four years. Now, it seem, they have very active competition on their hands to secure such sites, following the arrival of this latest provider to Ireland and Cork which snapped up Square Deal.

The deal, signed unconditionally by the as-yet unidentified company, is due to close in coming weeks, and sets a price headline marker for much of 2017’s city site sales ahead: it equates to about €6.5m an acre.

But the location is prime — between the city centre/Capitol complex and UCC, near the Courthouse and Mercy Hospital, and close too to the event centre site to which BAM this week reconfirmed its commitment, subject to a gap in funding being addressed. (The BAM Event Centre/Brewery Quarter site at South Main Street also includes a student apartment component).

Square Deal went to market not once but twice, and went ‘sale agreed’ in 2015 at over €6 million, but the deal then agreed failed to complete, It was taken off the market, and re-advertised in the second half of 2016, at a €6m guide, and went to best bids prior to Christmas.

It once again drew keen interest, according to James O’Donovan of Savills, noting its proximity to the city centre and UCC, triple street frontage, and 75m fronting onto Washington Street.

The building, with a red-brick section protected, had been a furniture store for 40 years, owned and operated by the Herlihy family who also own the Loft, on Cornmarket Street. A closing down sale was held at Square Deal in mid-2015.

Details: Savills 021-4271371