Cork City Council to dispose of second landbank opposite Apple HQ

Council coffers boosted by over €3.1m after sales of two lots in past year to IDA for strategic reasons

Apple, which secured planning permission last year for a major expansion of its Hollyhill campus on its existing car park, intends to use the landbanks for displaced parking. File picture Dan Linehan

Cork’s city councillors have approved the disposal to the IDA of a second publicly owned landbank opposite tech giant Apple’s European headquarters to facilitate the company’s ongoing expansion on the northside.

The decision, made at Monday's council meeting, to dispose of ‘lot B’ for €1.89m brings to over €3.1m the total boost to council coffers from the sale of it and an adjoining landbank, lot A, last year, to the IDA for strategic reasons.

While the IDA and City Hall have not commented on the long-term plans for the lands, documents show that Apple, which secured planning permission last year for a major expansion of its Hollyhill campus on its existing car park, intends to use the landbanks for the displaced parking.

Monday’s decision to dispose of lot B follows the disposal in April 2022 of lot A, a 3.81-hectare site, to the IDA’s Strategic Property Division, for €1.25m.

They made up a 10-hectare landbank which was deemed suitable for disposal to the IDA, in two separate lots.

Councillors were told last April that in discussions with the IDA, it had been indicated that further land “may be acquired to meet short to medium employment needs”.

That second disposal was approved during Monday’s council meeting with little debate.

Strategically important

Fianna Fáil councillor Tony Fitzgerald said the land disposals combined were strategically important as it helps in the global marketing of Cork in general, and Hollyhill specifically, as a place in which to invest.

Sinn Féin councillor Mick Nugent also welcomed the disposal and called for some of the proceeds from the disposal to be used to kickstart the design and development of a north-west regional park.

The city’s head of finance, John Hallahan, said council policy does not provide for the ring-fencing of such sale proceeds, which go directly into the city’s central coffers.

“Ringfencing is not in our policy but we have reassured councillors on several occasions that there will be funding for the north-west regional park,” he said.

Fianna Fáil councillor Sean Martin said councillors should take comfort from such assurances from senior council officials, and he pointed out that most development in the coming years will be on the city’s northside.

Apple opened its Irish operation in Cork in 1980 with a single manufacturing facility and 60 employees. Today, it employs more than 6,000 people at Hollyhill making it one of the city’s largest private employers.

It secured planning last year for a new four-storey office block on its car park site, to include office space, meeting rooms, staff welfare, and various service areas on the site of its existing carpark, including a single storey ‘commute hub’ building that will provide bicycle and scooter parking, as well as storage and staff facilities serving the wider Apple campus.