Warehouse snapped up

This high-bay, high-spec 84,000 sq ft warehouse at Courtstown, Little Island, made up of three units, is being bought for c€2m.

A €2 million purchase of a brand new warehouse building is due to close this month — for less than half the price its builders paid for the site.

The buyer’s identity isn’t yet known. but the value is screamingly obvious for a quality building of 84,000 sq ft in a strong industrial/commercial location.

The high-specification high-bay warehouse at Courtstown, Little Island, a few miles east of Cork city by the harbour, publicly went to market last year, guiding €3.5m. At the time we noted here that even that €3.5m sum was €1m lower than the developers had paid for the 5.8 acres site: build costs would have run to several million euro more.

It was decided by joint agents Downing Commercial and Lisney to sell by tender, in December, but reports of a deal being signed by January proved premature.

Now, sources say a deal is due to close shortly, at a sale price of just €25 per square foot. At the time of its development, it was expected to sell for €100 to €150 psf. Its builders, Lanes, had previously developed and sold about 170,000 sq ft of warehousing at nearby Euro Business Park, where smaller, niche units of around 1,800 sq ft had sold for as much as €250 psf.

An impressive warehouse building, it has extra high eaves of up to 12 metres making for huge flexibility for logistics/storage users, and those in distribution.

The 84,000 sq ft block is made up of three high-bay warehouse units, with 42,000 sq ft in the largest, and two more smaller ones of 21,000 sq ft each. The 5.8 acre site had been sold on as surplus to requirements by the developers of an adjoining business park, and is divided from their scheme by a road.

Location is opposite Harbour Point Business Park and facing Fota Island. Adjacent occupiers include Kuehne and Nagel, Lucey Transport, and Johnson Logistics.

Details: Lisney 021-4275079; Downing Commercial, 021-4271000