Limerick office block sells for €3.25m at auction

A four-storey office block in Limerick city, which has the Office of Public Works as a sitting tenant, sold for €3.25m at an Allsop’s auction at the RDS yesterday.

River House at Charlotte’s Quay had been set at a reserve of €2.8m. The OPW is renting the 3,300sq m property as part of a 10-year lease that began last year. It paid rent of €341,760 last year but by 2016 that is set to rise to €370,952 per year.

Another Limerick property at Cruises St went for €1.05m despite a reserve of €850,000. The retail unit is rented to Specsavers and has a rental income of €200,000 per year.

Last night’s auction was attended by up to 1,000 people and was Allsop’s biggest auction to date, with up to 150 lots.

A local group had hoped to buy a former community centre in Trim, Co Meath, which had been owned by the community-based Trim Initiative for Development and Enterprise before it went into voluntary liquidation in August last year.

The group had succeeded in getting 100 people to pledge €1,000 each toward the purchase. However, this fell short of the €195,000 reserve and the property was left unsold.

The receiver was trying to sell the building on behalf of Bank of Scotland, which had a charge on it.

There were a few protesters outside the RDS last night but the organisers had reviewed their security procedures with potential bidders queuing on the street and subject to security checks before being allowed on to the grounds of the RDS.

Woodlands Golf Course, an 18-hole golf course on 127 acres at Naas, Co Kildare, sold at the auction for €650,000

Most of the property for sale was retail and commercial, but a holiday cottage on Achill Island was sold for €18,000, €3,000 over its reserve.

A laundrette and three two-bedroom apartments on Cork St in Dublin City Centre went for €495,000. The Gilbert and Wright pub in Dún Laoghaire was also sold, for €650,000.