East Douglas Village next up on the money merry-go-round with €9.5m price guide

Historically home to 'The Merries,' or Piper's Funfair, this highly successful mixed-use suburban street development, completed in 2000, comprises five buildings, all close to 100% occupancy. For sale with Lisney, it earns €760,000 pa in rental income or 7.3% NIY

East Douglas Village: Hitting the open market with wide investor appeal via agent Margaret Kelleher of Lisney.

Thu, 29 Apr, 2021 - 06:30

Tommy Barker

A redeveloped Cork suburban ‘street’ that once traded as funfair site Piper’s has come for sale with a rental income of €761,000 — and a price tag of €9.5m… for those who can afford to pay the piper.

Fresh to market coming up to this bank holiday weekend is East Douglas Village, a highly successful mixed-use development completed in 2000, comprising five buildings. It includes a bar/restaurant with 10-bedroom hotel, 16 apartments, three restaurants, plus offices and retail accommodation, all close to 100% occupancy.

The development adjoins Aldi, which is set to open in coming weeks, and a busy McDonald's, with a new road opened to serve the latest supermarket arrival.

That new inner Douglas link road feeds into this East Douglas Village complex, which itself created a new streetscape when it opened in 2000, with high-quality cut limestone and red brick buildings, delivered to a design by JE Keating & Associates, for the site’s owners and developers, local couple George and Imelda Barry.

The sale of the multimillion-euro investment, offering a 7.35% net initial yield, comprises virtually all of the entire development, except unit five in Holbar House and three privately owned apartments. The development is fully occupied save for one 300 sq ft unit which is currently up for lease.

One of the five buildings at East Douglas Village.

Prior to development in 1999/2000, the site served as a winter base for nearly 80 years for the early 1900s-founded Piper’s Funfair, known more readily as The Merries and which entertained generations of Corkonians during its bank holiday and weekend openings: Piper's travelled West Cork and Kerry and decamped to The Point in Crosshaven for core summer months. The traditional business, with roots back to the 1880 in England, continues in Cork in a third generation of the Piper family, next to the amusement arcade La Scala.

Its next turn on the merry-go-round is for whoever takes over East Douglas Village, hitting the open market with wide investor appeal via agent Margaret Kelleher of Lisney.

One of the larger publicly offered investment offers in recent months in Cork, at €9.5m, it’s beyond the reach of most private investors, and so will appeal most to funds, who may choose to hold it in its entirety, or separate out various elements of an attractive income earning mix.

It’s set in the midst of an affluent and extensive suburb serving swathes of the southside, from Douglas to Rochestown, Grange, Frankfield, and beyond, with evidence of a recovery in trade in Douglas following the reopening of the fire-struck Douglas Village Shopping Centre late last year, and the impending Aldi opening, next to East Douglas Village, on the site of the former CinemaWorld.

According to Lisney’s MS Kelleher, the currently income of €761,424 pa has further potential uplift in income from the apartments, which could rise to €199,000 pa when RPZ increases are implemented, and from the car park.

The residential section of the income from the 16 two-bed apartments, described as large, is €186,564 per annum, which is an average of €11,500 pa per unit or under €1,000 per month.

The commercial income is €574,860 pa, with a WAULT of 8.42 years. The five buildings are called Barry House, Barryscourt House, Holbar House, Village House, and East Village Bar, Restaurant, and Hotel. Three additional apartments in this building are not included in the investment sale, being conducted for a receiver.

The latest commercial tenant to arrive is Oak Fire Pizza, due to open shortly after approval for a change of use was secured, and other food-related uses include East Village Bar, Restaurant, and Hotel at a rent of €180,000, established by the group that operates Soho in the city centre, El Vino Tapas and Wine Bar, Ramen Asian Street Food, along with EBS, Staunton & Byrne Hair Salon, Douglas Barbers, Ailesbury Clinic, and Metric Group.