€2m-plus guide on modern Galway suburban hotel

A modern Galway suburban hotel has come for sale with a €2m-plus price tag, well under its development cost.

The Hotel Clybaun, in the suburb of Knocknacarra and near Salthill, has over 90 bedrooms, and a leisure centre with 18-metre pool; it is being sold by Dermot Curtin of CBRE Hotels, for joint receivers Patrick Dillon & Michael McAteer.

Mr Curtin says that the 2001-built Hotel Clybaun is one of Galway’s best known hotels, and is one of the very few around the western capital to come for sale in recent years, testament to the strength of its indigenous sector and tourism markets.

This will be the first Galway city hotel to be offered to the market since c2006/2007, according to the CBRE agent as the Glenlo Abbey Hotel on 140 acres — sold early last year — is in Co Galway, outside the city near Moycullen.

The purpose-built three-star Hotel Clybaun complex is in Knocnacarra, a residential western suburb of Galway with a local population of 12,000, and with 4,500 dwellings. It’s a short drive to the city centre, and is easily reached from Salthill and its beaches, as well as being close to the university, Leisureland and other amenities.

It has 92 beds and suites, pool and gym, spa treatment rooms, etc, as well as bar, restaurant, function/conference room, and wedding facilities.

RevPar figures for the three-star Galway market (tourism is worth €350m a year to the city with its 75,000-strong population) are up 7% on the same period in 2013, according to CBRE.

“As no Galway city hotels have been offered to the market in recent years, the sale of the Hotel Clybaun now provides potential purchasers with quite a unique opportunity to acquire a modern, full service hotel in the city and, by doing so, establish a sizeable foothold in the much sought after and extremely lucrative, Galway hotel market,” says Dermot Curtin, adding the city was the country’s second largest tourism centre, with one million visitors a year.

Price guide is in excess €2m “well below the original development costs of the property,” he adds.

Details: CBRE 01-6185500