Cork is a city on the up heading into 2016

IT jumps out of the Price Register as a €52 million sale for its residential element alone - Cork’s Elysian Tower has been a highly-visible barometer in both regional and national terms of hopes in boom times, dashed ambitions in the economic collapse, all the while personifying the ups, downs and now the ups once more.

Still the tallest building in the Republic, it’s finally set for full occupancy and for its apartments’ lights to go on from top to bottom from 2016, almost a decade after it was constructed.

Following a tumultuous year for its developers O’Flynn Construction, and its remarkable ‘coming to terms’ with venture funds giant Blackstone who acquired the group’s loans from Nama, the vast bulk of the 214 residential units ranged around an acre of elevated garden are set to be fitted out in the coming months.