Healthy sale for city site

An aerial view of the Douglas Motors site near St Finbarr’s Hospital (partially seen bottom of picture) which met strong demand before being sold.

JOB relocations by the HSE to the St Finbarr’s Hospital campus in Cork city will stand to the benefit of a site just sold on the Douglas Road, with a Tesco Express or Centra rumoured as a possible user.

The HSE relocations, from city offices and locations like the Kinsale Road roundabout will see employment numbers — already in the hundreds — swell further, creating local day-long demand for retail, convenience snacks and food at this setting, a kilometre from the city centre.

That location, strong passing car traffic, and proximity to St Finbarr’s and its growing staff numbers (100 jobs moving from Abbeycourt House in October), helped fuel demand.

Names like Tesco Express/Centra, or other local retail users, are being bruited about for the half acre site just sold, after the liquidation last year of occupiers Douglas Motors.

It attracted huge interest given the primacy of the location, with over 20 inquiries to agents Lisney who have recently marked it Sale Agreed.

According to sources, the investor buyer came from outside the local market, and secured the property with its current 6,200 sq ft of building and 35 metres frontage for just under the €700,000 guide. The buyer’s identity isn’t disclosed.

The building may be upgraded, or replaced, was re-roofed several years ago. Key advantages are ease of access for traffic leaving the city along the main Douglas Road (a shop just on the city side of St Finbarr’s reopened next to the Lion’s Den bar last year) and there’s a settled residential population between Capwell Road, Ballinlough and the city end of Douglas. The just-sold former Douglas Motors site is near the old Nemo Rangers’ pitches between the two Douglas roads east of the sprawling St Finbarr’s Hospital lands, where Fleming Construction secured planing for 100 new houses back in the mid-2000s. That site still has huge medium-term residential potential.

Meanwhile, it’s reported that Fleming Construction’s 14-storey Sentinel building in Dublin’s Sandyford is to be completed for apartments. It’s currently like a Marie Celeste in skeletal form, and was bought by UK-based company with Irish links, Comer Construction, for €1m. It may see €15m more invested in completing 125 apartments there, showing a development cost of €130,000 per unit.

Flemings paid €165m for the full Allegro/Sandford site.

Details: Lisney 021-4275079