Ballincollig apartment sale may attract some of Elysian bidders

By Tommy Barker

THE quiet market sale of a €30m-plus residential development, totalling 165 apartments in Cork’s Ballincollig, is likely to see a continuation of overseas buyers and funds now looking for multi-family investments of scale, outside of the Dublin market.

Being offered in a low-key fashion in recent weeks are 165 units at the Crescent and Quadrants apartment blocks in the Ballincollig Town Square mixed-use scheme, built by O’Flynn Construction and now owned by a global investment fund firm.

The sale, expected to fetch between €30m and €35m, follows on the just-completed disposal by Carbon Finance/Blackstone to Kennedy Wilson of the Elysian tower and associated blocks. That sale, totalling 211 apartments and commercial units, in the city centre, also developed by O’Flynn Construction, was reported here a month ago at a speculated €90m, and finally confirmed this week at a sale price of €87.5m.

The Elysian has a rent roll of close to €5m, and was pursued by three international parties via joint agents Savills and Lisney.

Now, some or all of those Elysian bidders may be expected to joint the fray for the Ballincollig residential investment which has a rent roll of close to €2.5m per annum, the majority being from residential lets, and with c €210,000 at present from a small number of commercial units which are tenanted. The largest retail/commercial occupier is Boyle Sports, and the majority of ground level/commercial units have remained unoccupied since developed in the mid 2000s, so there’s uplift potential.

The Ballincollig sale of the Crescent, and Quadrant units via Lisney and Savills, comprises 165 apartments, with the balance of the scheme’s 278 units in all not included in this sale, nor is any office element or the main retail set-up at what’s been rebranded Castle West Shopping Centre.

The 165 units for sale span 45 apartments in the 90-unit The Crescent, and 120 out of 188 in the Quadrants, and the majority are two-beds of various sizes, with most recent rents ranging from €1,100 to €1,600 for one to three-beds. Occupancy is close to 100%.

Market sources say that the arrival of the Elysian put Cork’s residential investment of scale in a wider spotlight for international funds, with typically better yields than in the increasingly competitive Dublin market.

An as yet unidentified overseas fund buyer, for example, is tipped as the purchaser of the City Square development in Cork City’s Watercourse Road, Blackpool, a kilometre from the city centre.

City Square went to the open market earlier this year with a €28m price tag quoted by Savills, and is understood to be ‘sale agreed’ at over €30m. It has a residential rent-roll of €1.816m from its 127 apartments, with a further €177,000 in commercial unit income, with scope to boost income from un-let space.

The sale comes as an increasing focus comes on the build-to-let market in Cork, with a development due at the city’s north quays at HQ/Horgans Quay by Kent Station, while a wide array of inquiries are understood to have been received to date on the Ford Depot/former ‘Atlantic Quarter’/Live at the Marquee site in the south docks, launched last month by CBRE Cork and Dublin, with a €8.5m price guide for 11.5 acres, most likely to be bought for residential lets.

As momentum grows both for existing quality multi-family investments, and for sites for build-to-let to a significant scale, market sources also suggest a sizeable c€20m residential investment is being prepared for an imminent launch in the Cork region.

DETAIL

: Lisney 021-4275079, Savills 021-4271371