Investing in Mall ware

Further office sales and investments beckon on Cork city’s South Mall traditional offices heartland, hot on the heels of a building investment sale by Allsops last month, for €1.4million.

The sales, and offers, come at a turning point in time for the South Mall, as professional and commercial activity picks up. Any new presences on the street at new, more affordable prices will help shape this historic business boulevard’s future profile and uses.

Understood to be under advanced negotiations at €3m-plus as an investment is Hibernian House at 80A South Mall, which has a rent roll of €207,000 pa, 80% paid by Government tenants, and with just half of the c 80,000 sq ft currently occupied. It had a guide price of €4m via Downing Commercial, who’ve declined to comment on the progress of the sale. The agreed sale at 80A comes just weeks after Allsops successfully sold Nos 57-59 South Mall at auction for €1.4m, with just one bidder. Previously offered at €1.5m with a South Mall agency, Nos 57-59 has 14,500 sq ft with a rent roll of €164,500 from three tenants, and has car-parking at nearby Margaret Street earning €22,500 per annum.

Also in the recent multi-million euro investment sale bracket is 83 South Mall (featured in these pages two weeks ago) for €2.1m via Savills. No 83, a former bank building expensively refurbished, has 15,000 sq ft of quality space, and a rent roll of €180,000 pa on a new 12-year lease. Even newer to market this week and up for new occupants/uses is the adjacent 81 South Mall, a four-story building by the junction with Crane Lane. This entire building, with both office and retail potential, has 3,900 sq ft and is offered via Philip Hosford of DTZ Sherry FitzGerald and Niall Cahalane of Cahalane Skuse.

No 81 has a guide price of €400,000, and was previously occupied by estate agent Denis A Barrett, who has moved his active international auction business to new serviced offices in 5 Lapps Quay. It has a vacant ground floor, with upper levels on short licence/term agreements.

Book-ending South Mall at the Grand Parade junction, and previously occupied by several estate agency firms but vacant for a period is the tall and slender corner building No 41A South Mall. The handsomely just refurbished (at a cost of €100,000) 41A South Mall has a high corner profile, by the Monument, Peace Park and Electric restaurant, and has 1,240 sq ft in all, over five floors. Estate Agent Timothy Sullivan guides at €425,000, and reports early interest.

Nearby, Paul O’Driscoll of Thos J O’Driscoll & Co seeks c €250,000 for 46 South Mall as an investment, with 3,000 sq ft in all, including ground floor shop and overhead offices. He’s also selling the leasehold interest on the upper floors of No 47. Previous sales on this strip of the South Mall include No 44 (vacated by Keane Mahony Smith, who moved to Grand Parade), which was bought for c €500,000 three years ago by Roy Keane, as an investment in his native city.

And, across the street, agents Frank V Murphy & Co now quote just €175,000 for No 37 South Mall, one of the Mall’s more intriguing buys, with 2,000 sq ft at ground level and stretching right back to a building section overhanging the River Lee’s south channel and weir, between Electric and Fish bar and restaurant and Parliament Bridge.