Ex corporate HQ of Cork's Shipton Group bought at a receiver's auction for €370,000 now asking €1.25m

Shipton Group ex-HQ sold in 2014 at auction for €370,000 and has been earning rent ever since, used as a school. Now it's guided at €1.25 million

Waterpark House,  Carrigaline has over 6,000 sq ft and was a corporate HQ for the Shipton Group, and more recently a school

THE former corporate HQ of the property development company the Shipton Group, Waterpark House, has been put up for sale with a €1.25m AMV, having last sold in 2014 at an Allsops auction to a local Carrigaline businessman for just €370,000.

The high-end property, comprising a 300-year-old Georgian over-basement building with contemporary, nautical-styled curved roof extension, extends to over 6,000sq ft, and has been let for six years in the interim to the local Gaelcoláiste.

Last class at Waterpark in 2021: Picture: Howard Crowdy

Waterpark House now carries a €1.25m price tag, after the move by the school to a new, large purpose-built education campus on a site on the Ballinrea Road, where three schools are now sited in a €34m Dept of Education/Cork ETB investment which will cater for 1,000 pupils.

Waterpark House Carrigaline

The just-vacated Waterpark House is in a superb location, right by the heart of ever-expanding Carrigaline, and will a suit a wide range of new users, according to selling agent Roy Dennehy of Dennehy Properties, acting jointly with Sean Healy of Cushman & Wakefield.

These uses may include IT, clinical/medical/therapies, or corporate HQ once more: it was developed at a significant cost by Clayton Love Jnr’s Shipton Group over 20 years ago as the retail-focused developers embarked on major and some mixed uses schemes across Cork, including Blackpool, Douglas, and Carrigaline.

Waterpark House, with early 2000s extension

Waterpark House was put up for sale in 2013 via agents Savills with a €520,000 AMV for receivers KPMG, but didn’t transact at that price level, likely to have been a fraction of its development cost at market peak.

It next went up to auction with Allsops in 2014, when its sold for over €370,000 to Carrigaline businessman Michael Kidney who later rented it as an education facility to the VEC/Cork ETB at an undisclosed rent for about six years.

 Second year students pictured outside the new Gaelcoláiste which opened its doors November 1st 2021. Picture: Howard Crowdy

Ship-shape by Shipton: contemporary interventions and add-ons at 300-year old Georgian property

It’s freehold, with a range of offices/rooms over up to three levels including a feature basement with arched brick supports on a secure site of 0.8 of an acre with parking for up to 28 cars.

Among those likely to express an interest are companies involved in activities at Port of Cork, where a multimillion-euro relocation process is ongoing from the city centre and quays, and from the container port at Tivoli, with future port activities also due to step up at Marino Point.

DETAILS: Denney Auctioneers 021 – 4371249, Cushman & Wakefield 021-4275454