Radisson Blu Cork cost €37m to develop, now on market for €8m

Cork’s Radisson Blu Hotel which was developed at a cost of €37m, is for sale for €8m, with strong trading figures and good profits clocked up over the past three years.

The modern 126-bed hotel, attached to the restored 19th-century Ditchley House, is on nine acres adjoining the East Gate Business Park and close to Euro Business Park, as well as Little Island, serving a hinterland with thousands of jobs.

The hotel was developed by former dentist and developer Rick Fitzgerald of the Oran Group, with input from experienced hotelier Des O’Dowd. It opened in 2005.

Also in the hinterland is the Fota Island Resort, developed by the Fleming Group, where a sale agreed last year for around €25m to a Beijing-based buyer has since collapsed.

Funded by Ulster Bank, the Radisson Blu hotel is being sold for its owners via agents Tom Barrett and Denis O’Donoghue of Savills in Dublin, who’ve clocked up five Cork and Kerry hotel sales in the past year and who expect domestic and overseas enquiries.

The Savills hotel division, headed by Tom Barrett, has recently sold the 182-bed River Lee Hotel in Cork city for €24.5m; the Parknasilla resort on 485 acres for €10m; the 145-bed Cork International Airport Hotel for over €5m; and Kenmare’s 66-bed Sheen Falls for €5m. The Savills team report advanced negotiations on Cork’s 131-bed Kingsley Hotel on the Carrigrohane Road, including 18 apartments guiding at €6m; as well as in the Midleton Park Hotel, guiding at €2.5m.

Little Island’s Radisson Blu Hotel has 126 bedrooms, a leisure centre with 1,000 members, a lounge, bar, a function room for up to 500 and nine other meeting rooms within the old Ditchley House. Ditchley’s lands were sold in the 1990s to O’Flynn Construction and are now occupied by East Gate Business Park.

A four-star hotel, it is one of 13 Irish hotels managed by Rezidor, with 10 of these trading as Radisson Blu hotels.

And the luxury hotel which hosted the most peaceful G8 in history could be sold by the end of the summer. More than five prospective buyers are vying for ownership of the five- star Lough Erne resort, which is on the market for around £10m (€11.7m).

Managing director of CBRE in the North, Brian Lavery, which was appointed by joint administrators KPMG to handle the sale, said there was significant interest from across the world.

“They are both local and international parties. There was a lot of interest — 60 confidentiality agreements were issued.”