Three bids over €20m for zoned housing land

A PERIOD home set on 150 acres with 80 acres zoned for housing has been sold for €24 million.

The Dunkathel estate in Cork was sold lock, stock and barrel by the Russell family to O’Flynn Construction, one of the south’s leading firms in both commercial and residential development.

Dunkathel House went under the hammer at private auction, attended by at least five bidders, three of whom made offers over €20 million for the property.

Underbiders included an estate agent acting for a consortium, a solicitor who has acted for Owen O’Callaghan in the past, a Northern Ireland developer, and Ruden Homes.

The €24 million sale has proven a windfall for Dunkathel’s owners, the Russell family, who inherited the demesne from the Wise Gubbins family and who had struggled in recent years to maintain the period property with huge on-going expenses.

The family, Betty Russell and her three sons Frankie, Joe and Phillip, had agreed a previous sale at 14 million for 80 acres of land, but planning permission was refused by an Bord Pleanala for a scheme of 330 houses planned by Bride View Developments, causing that firm to pull out of the purchase.

The re-sale this week has seen a far higher price paid, but what has been bought is also more substantial - a full 146 acres, large period house dating to the late 1700s, plus most vitally, 80 newly rezoned acres in the new County Development Plan, adjacent to the city, Jack Lynch Tunnel and Glanmire.

On straight development values alone and excluding the house and amenity land values, it equates to €300,000 per acre for the zoned land. Much smaller land parcels of three to five acres have breached the €1 million an acre level in Cork in recent years.

Last night, O’Flynn Construction MD Michael O’Flynn confirmed their acquisition of Dunkathel, at the private auction conducted by Roger Flack of CB Hamilton Osborne King.

It was, he said, a strategic purchase for the company, acquiring 80 acres for house building close to the city, as well as further unzoned amenity lands sheltering the house, plus the house itself. O’Flynn Construction already owns eight acres of adjoining land, with road frontage, and the two lots combined at 88 acres will now form the basis of a planning application.

Future uses for the period home, which has been open on a limited basis to the public and possibly designed by architect Davis Duckart, could include hotel, corporate offices, private residence or leisure.

COMPANY MD Michael O’Flynn said they had preliminary discussions with Cork County Council and would now have further talks with them prior to submitting a planning application for development, before the end of this year.

He declined to be drawn on the density of housing they would seek, but it is likely to be higher than the low density development of 330 houses previously proposed for the lands.

In the previous sale to Bride View Developments, the Russell family of their own volition put in a stipulation that only 300-plus houses could be built. No such condition was part of the latest sale.