Former Blacktie shop will suit investor on main Cork city street

WITH a pick-up in fortunes at the northern end of Cork City’s retail thoroughfare, Patrick Street, a new sales push and a new agent are behind the vacant corner property at No 125 Patrick Street/Lavitts Quay, by St Patrick’s Bridge.

Previously the Blacktie dress-hire shop owned by Niall O’Farrell, it had been on the market over two years ago at €1.35m, after Blacktie went into liquidation. At its peak, Blacktie had 17 Irish outlets, and, at time of closure, after 25 years in business, 11 shops were affected.

Now, the price quoted by Seamus Costello of DTZ Sherry FitzGerald for No 125 Patrick Street is €800/850,000, and that’s for a genuinely high-profile, 2,695 sq ft four-storey building, with vacant possession. The company’s giant DTZ For Sale banner proclaims it as a landmark building — and the point is proven by that same banner’s high visibility along the city quays.

At one stage a bar called the Swan and Cygnet, before being adapted for retail use, No 125 faces the main entrance to the Merchants Quay shopping centre, where a grant of planning permission is anticipated shortly for a facade update, with more glass, and to facilitate re-ordering of units along the main entry mall (see pic, right).

Also selling close by, and understood to be at an advanced stage of negotiation with Lisney, are Nos 106/107 Patrick Street, vacated last August by Quills in a receivership sale for a Quill-related company.

Next to Dunnes’s major store, it had been occupied by Quills for 25 years, and adjoins the Savoy Centre. It’s understood to be sale agreed over the €1.95m mark, to an undisclosed buyer. Market reports suggest a site assembly around the Savoy Centre may be underway, with another firm of agents, Bannon, marketing the vacant A-Wear to let, with over 10,000 sq ft there over four levels.

A number of new tenants and retail relocations are also due in premises at the other end of Patrick Street, as Penneys gear up to double their key store along the middle section of the street, after a multi-million euro spending spree, spilling over to Cook Street.

Meanwhile, now offering the corner-set No 125, Seamus Costello, of DTZ, observes it’s near Schuh, Carphone Warehouse, Eason’s, Marks & Spencers, Debenhams and has substantial frontages to two streets, Patrick Street and Lavitt’s Quay, and says it is equally ideal for an investor as an owner-occupier.

Details: DTZ Sherry FitzGerald, 021-4275454