Penneys are on a roll

TOMORROW is the tender date for the sale of Cork City’s Victoria Hotel on St Patrick’s Street and Cook Street, with well over a half dozen parties expected to make offers on the historic 33-bed city hotel.

The Victoria, guided at around €1m, comes as international retailer Primark/Penneys continues its multi-million euro stealth site-acquisition spree on Cook Street/St Patrick’s Street, to enable it to double its city presence from 35,000 to 80,000 sq ft.

It is continuing to pick up a number of buildings here in off-market deals: likely to be among the latest is the Ambassador Restaurant at No 3 Cook Street, which has confirmed it is to close by May 10, transferring its Chinese restaurant business to Carrigaline. The Ambassador has been family owned, run by the Wong family, since 1987, and they opened their Carrigaline restaurant in the Owenbue Mall in 2004. The extended family has also been associated with the Yangtze River since the early 1970s.