School razed to make way for new scheme

SCHOOL days have ended with a bang for the former Rochelle school in Cork city. Demolition work is paving the way for a scheme of 70 up-market apartments.

A number of former pupils of the old boarding school returned to their alma mater in recent weeks to salvage small mementos of their school days before the demolition hammer hit its mark, while other larger elements of the building on three acres have also been salvaged.

It has taken about four years to get the Old Blackrock Road site, which made headlines at the time of the sale when it fetched a record c €1.5 million an acre, cleared for development.

It was one of the first suburban sites in Cork proposed for higher density development following acceptance that prime urban sites not be squandered on low density housing.

Developers are O’Callaghan Properties, who have now built 5,600 housing units since 1969 and who also are to build almost 50 apartments on Lavitts’ Quay in Cork city as part of a €29 million mixed development. O’Callaghan’s are also behind the 500m Mahon Point, Cork’s largest ever mixed development worth €500 million had third party objections to their initial plans, and the eventual grant of planning permission reduced a revised scheme, designed by Tony Dennehy Associates to 70 units.

The Rochelle school, run by the Church of Ireland, was amalgamated into Ashton comprehensive, and the old school site sale still probably holds the record as the most expensive green field site bought for residential purposes in Cork to date.

Construction is soon set to flow after site clearance for 26 two bedroom duplexes, 14 three-bedroomed townhouses and 30 two bedroom apartments, with prices from €300,000 through agents Hamilton Osborne King. The residential scheme is due for completion in mid-2005.

The development will be heavily landscaped with mature trees kept.