Biggest pub sale bar none in Ballincollig

WHAT’S probably the biggest bar complex outside of Cork City centre has come up for sale in boom-town Ballincollig, with a price tag to match.

Treacy’s bar and restaurant is expected to make as much as €1.65m, with private treaty ‘best bids’ sought by April, 17.

Currently being run by an asset manager and with very strong, but undisclosed, trading figures, it’s being sold for receiver, Stephen Tennant, of Grant Thornton, via Behan Irwin Gosling.

The purpose-built, 12,000 sq ft bar, including an overhead nightclub, is set between Dunnes and a recently-opened Tesco supermarket on O’Flynn Construction’s redeveloped Barracks site. It was was sold off by O’Flynn’s in 2006, and bought and operated by the Gaffney Cork group of multi-pub owners.

The overhead nightclub was developed in a former restaurant space, occupied by Lemongrass, and the nightclub isn’t trading at present. If reinstated, it could produce an income of €55-70,000 per annum, suggests Treacys selling agent, Cearbhall Behan.

He describes the sale as “one of the most significant pubs in Munster to arrive on the market,” noting the extremely strong employment base in Ballincollig, including companies like EMc (who have just submitted planning for a new, four-storey data centre), VMware, McAfee and others.

The bar/restaurant faces onto Ballincollig’s Main Street, in a central and prominent position on the redeveloped Barracks site, and has 500 car-parking spaces to its side, as well as a number of O’Flynn Construction-developed residential schemes to the north.

Modern and purpose-built, it has 12,164 sq feet over two floors.

“Treacy’s will appeal to both licensed and restaurant operators chasing a high-volume food-and-beverage business in a proven day-and-night location, which is illustrated by the high turnover levels currently being achieved,” says Mr Behan.

He is currently concluding the sales of former Gaffney group bars: the suburban Cork’s Flannery’s, on the Glasheen Road, near UCC; The Groves, in Blackpool; and McDaid’s, in Midleton. All, he says, are being bought by private investors utilising the capital-gains incentive scheme that expired in December, 2014.

Mr Behan says “there’s been a pick-up in activity, due to the increase in hospitality sales and poor deposit rates offered by the banks.”

Recently opened in Ballincollig have been several new restaurants, including a Ramen and a drive-thru McDonalds, while the town’s 78-bed Oriel House Hotel was sold last year for receivers KPMG, for circa €8m, to the Talbot Hotel Group.

An asking prices hasn’t been disclosed, but the expectation, given the turnover, is that Treacy’s could make over €1.65m.

* Details: Behan Irwin & Gosling, 021-4270007