Developers JCD have made an off-market multi-million euro swoop on the Cork city Albert Quay site occupied for the past 50 years by family-owned Carey Tools, including the Sextant bar which was subsequently acquired by the Carey family.

Deutsche Bank is poised to take over an estimated €300m in performing property portfolio loans associated with a number of O’Callaghan Properties (OCP) assets in Cork.

A very tall office tower, of up to 15 storeys on a very tiny footprint site, is expected to go for planning permission in Cork city centre in coming weeks.

OVER €100m has been invested off-market, across three low-key retail deals, in the heart of Cork City, at Opera Lane, Merchants Quay/Marks & Spencers Shopping Centre, and St Patrick’s St.

There’s a clear move to the sheer convenience of city centre living, with a bounce in apartment values in better located schemes, and high-end units hitting high-end prices.

Cork city centre’s largest office scheme, Navigation Square, is now cleared for a €90m build commencement by the summer which could facilitate 3,000 jobs.

JANUARY’s not even over yet, but already a second Lisheen Fields home west of Ballincollig in Cork’s Ovens has come to market as a re-sale for a relocating family who are trading up, and moving closer to Cork city.

Apartments are well on the way back price-wise in Cork, with post-slump demand and values driven by location, most of all.

Tommy Barker eyes up a home in the visionary Jacob’s Island development which he says is maturing nicely.

A long, useful back garden, rising up in tiers behind No 4, The Willows, in Cork’s Classes Lake, is a bonus for a family looking for an affordable home, in a popular, modern development, around Cork’s Ballincollig and Ovens suburbs.

Up to five parties made bids on Cork city’s Capitol Cinema site with a decision on its disposal now resting with Nama.

A key landowner in Cork’s sprawling south docklands has backed O’Callaghan Properties’ €50m Albert Quay events centre project.

The development of a stand-alone multi-purpose events and conference centre on Cork’s Albert Quay could be the catalyst for the regeneration of the city’s sprawling docklands region, the team behind the O’Callaghan Properties proposal believes.

IRONIC, really — some of the country’s best apartments, finally built with enough space, storage and services to support long-term use and designed to suit owner occupiers and what happens? The property market dies, and first to go is the apartment buying sector.

HOVERING above the trees on Cork’s Maryborough Hill is the just-launching apartment scheme Elden — including five upmarket penthouses looking down on centuries’ old woodland and the Lee estuary.

BOWEN GROUP project manager Michael Trench has won a silver medal as joint category winner in the over €50 million category at the construction manager of the year awards.

WITH the coming launch of townhouses, duplexes and apartments at the old Rochelle school site in Cork, expect there to be lots of “property market vibe” about the benefits of the Old Blackrock Road as a location.

Eoin English and Sean O’Riordan

PLANS by developer Owen O’Callaghan to transform his Liffey Valley complex into a designated town centre for west Dublin were taken a stage further this week.

ONE of Europe’s top fund managers yesterday said the future of the Irish economy is bright.