An Post sells Naas Road site for €107m

THE cheque, to the tune of €107 million, is in An Post for a site by Dublin’s Red Cow Roundabout.

The country’s post service has off-loaded its now defunct SDS delivery services building on the Naas Road to developers.

The 14-acre site, between the infamous and pivotal Red Cow Roundabout and Newlands Cross on the Naas Road, made €107m, or a healthy €7.5m an acre for a property package with a difference.

Given its location by the Belgard Road and a LUAS line station and commuter car park, it is certain to be redeveloped for a mix of uses, with residential apartments and high-value commercial units on the cards despite its current industrial zoning.

Its purchaser’s identity was not being revealed yesterday by the board of An Post, who rubber-stamped the sale, or by agents Jones Lang La Salle, who delivered the massive deal.

However, it is a given that its buyer is a developer who ‘pushed the envelope’ and will make a play for a significant, high-density development on the site, which had been expected to sell for over €80m. The location is mentioned as part of the ‘Naas Road corridor’ which is to be considered for mixed use development in the South Dublin County Council Development Plan 2004-2010.

The plan may allow for mixed use development, including residential, as it “would reduce the need for further development on the fringes of the built-up area to the south of the Tallaght Integrated Framework area”.

New road improvements and the completed LUAS line mean that while traffic congestion would have militated against such a scale of development up to now, it may now be on the cards for this and other Naas Road sites, many still in industrial usage.

Des Lennon, a director of Jones Lang LaSalle, said “its chances of redevelopment for other uses were remote until recently. Now, the Naas Road, Red Cow and M50 redesign offers a real and deliverable solution to the traffic issues.

He added that “even on a relatively modest assumption of density, this transforms it into one of the finest mixed use development sites in Dublin. The price reflects this development potential”.