Make your move: Cork's Cubins €3.7m sale to gain from dearth of dancing venues

All sorts of shapes have been thrown at the legendary Cubins Cork city nightclub (and, before that, Spiders), now looking for, eh, expressions of interest

Wed, 08 Jun, 2022 - 19:26

Property Editor Tommy Barker reports

A DEARTH of dancing venues in Cork City should see some shapes thrown in the proposed sale of what’s been the city’s longest-established nightclub venue, Cubins, enjoyed by generations of clubbers with a DJ music mix that ranged from cheesy slow-sets to disco, punk, rock, rap, techno, and house.

Handover on Hanover Street? Cubins premises on the right in this Google Streetview image

Cork’s Cubins has been a dedicated dance venue for decades, under several names and iterations too. It took over and expanded the original Spiders’ nightclub set up in the 1980s by veteran entertainment impresario Kenny Lee, before being taken over by a business consortium trio in the 1990s and growing into Cubins.

All come out in The Wash? Night-time Cork's epicentre hinges around the John Rearden & Son complex on Washington Street/ Hanover Street, where Cubins is sited. Outside tables are located on Little Cross Street. Picture: Larry Cummins.

The sizeable night-time complex, just off Cork’s long-time, night-time strip Washington Street, or ‘The Wash’, is now being prepared to change hands, about to be offered for sale with a €3.7m AMV.

Interest can be expected from a wide cross-section of operators, including locally, from Dublin, and possibly from London, given the paucity of remaining ‘proper’ clubs in the city centre, and the draw to students and revellers from a wide metropolitan Cork catchment of up to half a million people.

Secret Garden nightclub faces Cubins on Hanover Street. Picture: Larry Cummins

The handful of dedicated clubs still in the mix include Cubins, Voodoo on Oliver Plunkett Street, and Secret Garden on the top of Reardens — the city’s heaving busy night-time hub for decades past too.

Meanwhile, a number of hybrid bar/clubs are also operating and coming back to life after the pandemic’s lockdowns, with some others, such as the Pav which is now controlled by publican Benny McCabe, also due to return to the night-time scene.

Cubins, a fully-licensed seven-day dance venue, is said to be in excellent order, ready to rock and roll as soon as any operators wish to open its doors.

Lee-side: Peter Aiken, Sinead Watters with Spiders founder and Kenny Lee at Aiken Promotions' announcement of 50cent and Elton John concerts by Aiken Promotions Live at the Marquee, in 2007.

The legend in its own chicken-supper time (for those who remember the early decades of dining and dancing) is due to come for sale with joint agents Casey & Kingston and ERA Downey McCarthy, by tender and as a going concern, even if it hasn’t traded since Covid-19 struck over two years ago.

In advance of a formal sale launch and listing, the agents haven’t commented on the sale details and it’s understood a tender date hasn’t yet been set.

The venue now spans 24,000sq ft, over two levels, at Nos 14-18 on Hanover Street, parallel to Washington Street and just off the South Main Street, where the former Beamish & Crawford brewery site is now redeveloped as Brewery Quarter, home to purpose-build student accommodation, offices, and is also set to hold the long-awaited events/entertainment centre, with new bridges feeding into that site, almost at the back of Cubins and between the city core and UCC.

Cubins itself is within a 19th-century redbrick Victorian former warehouse, sections of which were once part of the Dwyers empire on Washington Street of drapery, haberdashery, and wholesale, part of the city’s own fabric for 200 years, since the 1820s.

Cubins expanded after the property’s days as Kenny Lee’s Spiders to also move into a building occupied by A.F. O’Leary on Hanover Street.

The anticipated sale of Leeside’s Cubins at its AMV of €3.7m comes a week after the offer of a suburban Cork pub, the Rendezvous on Model Farm Road, guided at €2m.