Two major new hotels set to transform Cork city as construction begins on key sites

Two major hotel developments on South Mall and South Terrace signal fresh investment and renewed momentum in Cork’s growing hospitality sector

Computer generated image of the planned South Terrace aparthotel viewed from the adjacent Cotters St Image: JMK Group

TWO new hotels are about to begin construction in Cork city: one on South Mall, which Irish hotelier Shay Livingstone hopes to start in the first half of 2026, and a second on South Terrace, where work is starting on a 103-bedroom aparthotel by the UK-based JMK hospitality group.

Details of the planned €18.5m hotel at No 71 South Mall, formerly home to National Irish Bank, were shared last night with members of the Cork business community by Mr Livingstone, a seasoned hotelier who previously ran the Rochestown Park Hotel. 

He intends to call the 58-bedroom boutique hotel The Joshua, after his son, and has hired local firms to do the work. Co Clare-registered financial advisory company Finbuild Ltd is his funding partner in the project, which will bring back into use a long-vacant former bank building at the heart of the city’s financial district.

Separately, the JMK Group, owned by the UK-based Kajani family and chaired by Pakistani-Irish businessman John Kajani, has confirmed it is beginning work on a 103-bedroom aparthotel on South Terrace, for which planning permission was granted in 2022.

The planning permission for the South Mall hotel was granted in 2019 to previous owners but had lapsed, so a new application is pending.

“The reapplication is imminent and will be lodged this month,” Mr Livingstone said, adding that it will be made through his company Cadcove Holdings Ltd. 

There are no changes to the 2019 application, which granted permission to add two new storeys to the terraced four-storey building, including one five-storey section and a six-storey building fronting onto adjoining Morgan St, where the new hotel entrance will be, with improved public realm. 

The original planning grant also allowed for a fifth-floor roof deck and the conversion of the main banking hall into a bar/restaurant/café.

Hotelier Shay Livingstone expects work on a 58-bed boutique hotel to get underway at 71 South Mall, in the first half of 2026

Mr Livingstone acquired the building in 2023 for more than €3m from hoteliers/investors Ray Byrne and Eoin Doyle, who had planned to redevelop it themselves but later sold it amid no sign of a timeline for the long-awaited event centre on nearby South Main St. The building has been vacant since 2012, when Danske Bank/National Irish Bank closed its 27 Irish branches.

Mr Livingstone intends to use all Irish companies for the build, including Donoughmore-based Summerhill Construction, responsible for several high-profile projects such as the UCC Centre of Executive Education at No 1 Lapps Quay (originally the Cork Savings Bank). 

Architects are Reddy A+U, while QS on the project is Ballincollig-based MCOR Consultants. The building programme is expected to take 16 months.

Mr Livingstone raised €2m in EIIS funding (a Government tax relief scheme for investors in Irish businesses) in 2024 and has since brought Finbuild Ltd on board as a funding partner.

He told the Irish Examiner that the hotel will have “a 5-star feel”.

While No 71 is not a protected structure, it has been deemed of architectural interest by the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. An Architectural Heritage Impact Assessment by conservation experts JCA said the building’s Victorian banking hall “is an increasingly rare survivor in Cork City given the closure or reconfiguration of other nineteenth and early-twentieth-century banks in the city”.

The building has an interesting history. According to the JCA report, Pigot’s Directory of Cork of 1824 records John Woodroffe as living at No 71 at this time. Mr Woodroffe was a physician and surgeon to the South Infirmary Hospital and founder of the first School of Anatomy in Cork. 

The County and City of Cork Post Office Directory of 1842 records a “Bank of Ireland” at No 71; this bank was later replaced by the current structure, built around 1853. The Dictionary of Irish Architects records Mr William Francis Caldbeck as the Dublin architect who designed the current building at No 71. Mr Caldbeck was commissioned as the architect to the National Bank and designed a number of banks in the Italianate style around the country.

Site clearance underway to the rear of Nos 31.32 and 33 South Terrace, a trio of Georgian beauties once owned by noted architect Sir Thomas Deane. Pictures: Larry Cummins

Over on South Terrace, the JMK Group project will see the conversion of three late Georgian buildings – Nos 31, 32 and 33 – into a 103-bedroom aparthotel, which the group previously stated would operate under the Adagio brand, a key brand in the European aparthotel market. 

The group bought the buildings for €1m about a decade ago. The planning grant includes permission for a five-floor-over-ground-floor and lower-ground-floor annex to the rear of the buildings, as well as an external landscaped courtyard and green roof. 

The application was lodged through a company called Carra Shore Hotel (Cork). At the other end of South Terrace, plans by UCC to build a state-of-the-art business school, on a site it bought from Dairygold for €17.5m, have been shelved.

JMK also owns the 148-bed Moxy Hotel and Residence Inn, the first Marriott-branded hotel in Cork city, which opened in 2024.

Meanwhile, Whitbread Plc, owners of the Premier Inn brand, plan to begin construction of the city’s second Premier Inn early next year at the former Coliseum cinema/Leisureplex site at the junction of MacCurtain St and Brian Boru St. Clearance for the 174-bed hotel was given by planners in October following significant design changes. Whitbread acquired the site in 2024 for €5.5m, having opened the city’s first Premier Inn — a 187-bed hotel on Morrison’s Quay — the previous year.