An Bord Pleanála has granted planning permission for a €100m office development in spite of the Kilkenny Group warning that the proposal will result in "serious consequences" and job losses for its flagship store in Dublin.

The British and German owners of the Dundrum Town Centre - the largest shopping and leisure development in the country - are leading the opposition against plans by property investment company IPUT for a new retail and residential development at Carrickmines in south Dublin.

The planned c €100m roll out of sale and leaseback of retail properties by Irish bookseller Eason continues to gather pace, with the arrival of its Cork flagship store at 113-115 St Patrick’s Street for sale, guiding €6.6 million.

Plans are being advanced for the sale of the Wilton Shopping Centre in Cork, at an expected €85m-€90m guide, after conditional planning permission for a €100m redevelopment to include a multi-screen cinema and 190-bed hotel was granted by Cork City Council within the last week.

The long-anticipated sale by Nama of €300m in property portfolio loans, associated with a number of O’Callaghan Properties (OCP) assets in Cork, has been welcomed by the company itself as “very positive” and could bring fresh and further investor activity to the city.

French shopping centre owner Klepierre raised its takeover offer for rival Hammerson, but the London-listed company said it still undervalued its worth and advised shareholders to reject it.

A third, institutional fund sale of a retail investment on the western section for Cork city’s main trading thoroughfare, St Patrick’s Street, is new to marekt.

PROPERTY fund IPUT, with some €2bn in investments and which celebrates 50 years in the investment game this year, is seeking to offload three Cork city centre retail investments at the western end of Patrick Street, guiding €9.5 million, or a c 6.15% yield.

With both mainstream and social media dominated by political disharmony and the negativity caused by the mishandling of the Irish Water debacle it is easy to get lost in a haze of public discontent.

Hibernia REIT and IPUT plc both concluded residential and commercial property deals as activity ramps up to take advantage of a recovering market.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan has stated that no conflict of interest arises from former Nama executive John Mulcahy joining the board of Irish property pension fund IPUT.

A former director of Nama has been appointed to the board of one of the country’s leading commercial real estate funds.

THE demand for quality investments continues, with €33m in an office portfolio sale to three separate buyers in Dublin, and with a private buyer paying over €1.5m for a Cork City retail buy, as a pension investment, with a Tesco Express as its main tenant.

The Irish exchange is back in the big time, with the US also booming again, writes Kyran Fitzgerald.

A PRIME, good-sized store on Cork City’s Patrick Street has come up to let via Savills, at a market-savvy rent, after being vacated during the summer by Mothercare.