Built for €37m and sold for €9m, Radisson Blue is typical of hotels developed at end of boom

The year 2005 was Ireland’s ‘if you build it, they will come’ period. Much was built, but the conventional wisdom that property couldn’t lose money, was hitting the skids.

We were heading for ‘peak hotel’, as hospitality developments abounded. Many have since either shut their doors or changed hands, due to unrealistic financial expectations and a cliff-face recession. But some of the better-planned and built hotels are doing well under new management.

The Radisson Blu Hotel and Spa on Little Island, is celebrating a decade of service. The hotel was developed by Rick Fitzgerald in 2005, for €37m, and was taken over by Cork-based iNua Hospitality in 2014, for €9m. CEO Noel Creedon said the property fulfilled the company’s criteria for purchases: it was profitable, had potential for growth and was purchased at a significant discount to replacement cost.

The four-star property, with the period building, Ditchley House, as its centrepiece, has 126 bedrooms, an extensive spa and leisure centre, and is set on significant grounds outside Cork City.

iNua Hospitality is a specialist investment vehicle that acquires profitable hotels in Ireland that are being sold due to financial incapacity, following the downturn. Along with the Little Island hotel, the group has completed two other acquisitions, in Kerry and Limerick. It purchased the Muckross Park Hotel, in Killarney, in January, and the Radisson Blu Hotel & Spa, in Limerick, which was recently re-launched following a multi-million euro refurbishment. Creedon says the firm plans to spend €20m on further acquisitions in 2015.

Also from the class of 2005, the Clarion Hotel, on Lapp’s Quay, celebrates its 10th anniversary this year and is expected on the market shortly.