A private, low-key Irish investment company has seen off strong local, national and international bidding interest to acquire two Cork office investments, one let to Apple, the other to Trend Micro, in a deal worth close to €8 million.

THE chance to have Apple as a tenant in a Cork investment property sale will catch the eye and engage the interest of strong investors nationwide — as will the promised 10.65% net initial yield on offer in the case of two building sales valued at €7.25 million.

Personalised persents are a big trend for the season of giving. Ruth O’Connor picks some of the best gifts you can add the lucky recipient’s name to, to make it extra special.

Retail and mixed-use retail investments worth up to €10m between two lots, in Cork city centre and Midleton in East Cork, are offered by newly re-branded commercial agents Cushman and Wakefield.

A residential investment currently earning €378,000 a year in rent, from 24 modern housing units, is up for sale, less than a kilometre from Cork city centre.

Cork City is due to get a significant new, branded Italian restaurant and deli — a Carluccio’s.

Site clearance works could start within weeks on a Camden Quay office building of 72,000 sq ft, and which could have a transformative impact on an old Cork city centre area less than 100m from St Patrick Street.

The relocation of fashion retailer Cari’s Closet from Carey’s Lane to Patrick Street, Cork, brings 12, Carey’s Lane, to the letting market.

Cork Opera House is celebrating its 160th anniversary tonight. It’s a momentous milestone, says Marjorie Brennan.

TWENTY Years a Growing, or Fiche Bliain ag Fás, is a classic memoir of 20th century Irish literature — but, in the case of a Cork city office building, it’s more like a case of Five Years, and no Fás.

The major extension proposed for the Bon Secours Hospital, in Cork City, has been approved by An Bord Pleanála.

Nama is selling loans with a value of €300m belonging to Cork property developer Owen O’Callaghan, reports claim.

Cork City Council is to decide by the end of this week whether or not to permit office use at a quayside, outdoors shop to allow an educational authority to expand its offices.

The founding premises of homewares specialist store, Meadows & Byrne, in Cork City’s Academy Street will only be vacated and leased to restaurant chain, Nando’s, if planning is secured for change-of-use.

You couldn’t blame me for pining for Pana on Monday night.

A 12,000 sq ft Cork City centre bar and nightclub complex has come to market as part of a liquidator/bank sale, guiding €875,000.

A Cork-based architecture firm has beaten stiff European and international competition to land the tender to design a major new twin-tower 40-floor mixed-use development to be built in the north-eastern Chinese city of Dalian.

Return from the Horse Latitudes is a solo exhibition by sculptor, Don Cronin, in Triskel Christchurch, Cork.

Some 80% of Foreign Direct Investment inquiries coming to the IDA and this country are focused solely on the Dublin and D2 market, posing challenges for other Irish cities and regions like Cork, DTZ director Frank Ryan told the first southern gathering of a new representative body, Property Industry Ireland, this week.

Technology giant Apple is on course to double its workforce at Half Moon Street in Cork City as it expands its European headquarters in the city’s suburbs to cater for 3,300 employees.

APPLE COMPUTERS is bringing 400 more jobs to Cork city centre, swelling its workforce at Half Moon Street to as much as 800.

THERE was a poor level of office space take up in Cork in the second quarter, according to a new report from DTZ Sherry FitzGerald, with a notable increase in supply of offices, mostly from the release of second-hand properties, along with the rapidly completing City Gate Park in the Mahon suburbs where Quest are set to take 80,000 sq ft of the 250,000 new building.

COMPUTER giant Apple is to provide up to 350 jobs in Cork after signing a property deal to establish an office in the city centre.

A UNIQUE 19th century map showing the rich history of one of Cork city’s newest shopping precincts was unveiled yesterday.

A RENEWED focus on agri-business could revive our flagging economic fortunes, says one of Ireland’s leading property developers.

UP TO 1,500 army personnel should be transformed into a highly trained special force to deal “quickly and harshly” with the “yobs” who have taken over the country’s streets, a leading businessman has suggested.

A SPECIAL plaque has been unveiled to commemorate the 150-year historical connection between the Crosbie family – owners of the Irish Examiner – and Cork city centre.

TWO new landmark shopping areas on Cork’s main street have won the top awards in a prestigious building competition.

AN HISTORIC city lane at the heart of a €600m retail development was officially renamed last night after weeks of controversy.

CORK’S city fathers will have a say after all in the renaming of an historic lane.

BUILDING a new city street at any time would be an achievement but in the midst of a crippling recession it represents a spectacular landmark.

INTERNATIONAL pharmacy chain Boots is to make a giant, acre-sized footprint in Cork city centre, and promises 50 new jobs as a result.

INTERNATIONAL fashion chain H&M are to be one of the key retailers in Cork city centre’s almost completed €500 million Opera Lane development.

ONE of the country’s largest developers blamed a handful of Dublin-based builders “who lost the run of themselves” for some of the current financial crisis.

DEVELOPER Owen O’Callaghan is to seek planning permission this week for a €210 million office-led scheme on Cork city’s quays, and has promised an even more significant further office development in a year’s time.

THE Bodega Bar in Cork city has been bought by developer Owen O’Callaghan, in a €7 million swoop, and is set to be redeveloped as a shop.

HUNDREDS of unemployed people in Cork face the prospect of a brighter 2007 as O’Callaghan Properties yesterday announced a jobs initiative.

DEVELOPER Owen O’Callaghan has paid between €8 million and €10m for a riverside Cork site by the Opera House, for a retail, office and apartment scheme.

CORK writers and singers will hold a literary walkabout of the city today.

CORK city’s infamous riverbanks will be the central focus of the largest outdoor event ever to be staged here when the city is officially unveiled as the 2005 European Capital of Culture on Saturday night.

Media Group, Thomas Crosbie Holdings Limited (TCH), has sold its premises at Academy St, Cork to O’Callaghan Properties and acquired a new 3.5 acre site in Mahon as part of the deal.

Property Editor