Cost-rental apartments on Cork's Sextant bar site hailed as 'rebirth of city living'

Cork City Council has just approved planning for the 217-unit scheme on the former Sextant bar site

The 217-unit Railway Apartments scheme on Cork city's south docks will include one of Ireland's tallest buildings.

Planning has been approved for a €100m cost-rental apartment scheme on Cork’s south docks which has been described as “the rebirth of city living”.

City councillors have approved the Part 8 planning for the 217-unit Railway Apartments scheme on the former Sextant bar site, which will include a 24-storey residential block which is set to become one of Ireland’s tallest buildings.

The apartments, which will have rents at least 25% below market rates, will be built on a site where private apartments were deemed non-viable just four years ago.

The project was revived thanks to an agreement between Cork City Council and the JCD Group and the new homes will be located on the sites of the former Sextant bar and Carey’s Tool Hire on Albert Quay.

The Sextant bar, which once stood on the site of the apartments which have just been approved. Picture: Joe Healy/‘Cork in Decades Past'

In a report to councillors, City Hall’s interim chief executive Brian Geaney said 11 submissions on the scheme were received, with five in favour. Mr Geaney said the redevelopment of the site will provide much-needed housing and an uplift for the city centre.

Fianna Fáil councillor Mary Rose Desmond welcomed the scheme while Labour councillor Peter Horgan described it as the “rebirth of city living”.

Fine Gael councillor Damian Boylan said it is being developed in what will become one of the premier places in Cork city in which to live. He said: 

To think that we will have cost-rental apartments available here to the hard-pressed middle class, to be able to rent and have a home forever at a fixed rental price, is great news for the city.

Mr Geaney welcomed the planning approval and said it will make a tremendous difference to the city centre and the docklands in terms of the provision of much-needed affordable accommodation right where it is needed.

“The building itself will be one of the tallest, if not the tallest in Ireland,” he said. “It will be unique, it will bring life back to the area and we are looking forward to seeing it take shape as soon as possible.”

The apartments, which will have rents at least 25% below market rates, will be built on a site where private apartments were deemed non-viable just four years ago.

The site has lain vacant since the Sextant pub was demolished four years ago for JCD’s original 200-unit build-to-rent apartment scheme.

But there was controversy when JCD abandoned that project citing the financial non-viability of apartments, which it said would need rents of €2,800 per month to work.

It switched to an office project and was granted planning in March 2022 but work on that never progressed.

The new scheme will include a mix of studios and one-, two-, and three-bedroom units, with most for cost-rental, and around 40 or 50 designed specifically for older people and for those with a disability.

JCD has said it hopes to be on site for the cost-rental apartments scheme early in the new year.