Poetry in motion? Stony grey soil of €2.75m Monahan Road Cork city site well-set for homes

1.78 acre development site is on fringe of Cork's docklands set for 10,000 new homes by 2040

Thu, 27 Oct, 2022 - 16:09

Property Editor Tommy Barker reports

A SITE at the southern fringes of Cork City’s south dockland campus is for sale for €2.75m, capable of accommodating ‘several hundred’ urgently-needed residential units, in an area where far larger apartment schemes have long been mooted to match the surge in office jobs and to address an accommodation crisis.

Listed with agents Cushman & Wakefield is a site of 1.78 acres on Monahan Road, on the southern fringe of the south docks, owned by a long-established construction firm who acquired it after a previous mixed-use application in the mid-2000s was rejected by An Bord Pleanala.

Building on the site is let to two motor-related companies on short leases with no tenancy rights

It is occupied by a 27,000 sq ft industrial building, occupied on short leases, by car companies Blackwater Motors and Autoright: it’s earning €62,350 pa with no long-term tenancy rights.

The surrounds include business/office parks, several in redeveloped properties, as well as the high-end Telenganna House offices, with little residential development in the broader docklands hinterland, despite ambitions for high density.

City/suburbs fringe of Monahan Road development site

Cork City Council sees scope for 10,000 units in the city’s north and south docks 140ha campus, mostly apartments, to accommodate 25,000 persons, as well as 3,000 students and offices for 25,000 workers, representing 20% of growth targets by 2040.

Already, Glenveagh Properties have a site (the old Ford Distribution Centre) with planning for 1,000 units. O’Callaghan Properties, who are through a first planning phase on Kennedy Quay for mixed uses, including a hospital, and say they aim to deliver 1,300 apartments on an adjacent site, Gouldings, on Centre Park Road, while other sites with major and long-term scope include Marina Commercial Park, Tedcastles, and the ESB.

16-storey JCD office tower planned for Albert Quay at the grounds of the old Sextant Bar.

Delivery on many sites, including for build to rent/PRS, hinges on affordability/cost viability, however, with low delivery to date and with the likes of JCD Group switching plans from an apartment tower to offices (yet to start) on a key site like the Sextant/Carey Tool Hire plot on Albert Quay.

This Cushman & Wakefield development site was the focus of a previous planning application, in 2005, for a mixed-use scheme of 93 apartment (104 originally sought), five townhouses, and 33,0000 sa ft of commercial development, including a creche. Permission was granted by Cork City Council, but was overturned by An Bord Pleanala.

It now comes for sale after a half-acre brownfield site, close by on Monahan Road, got offered via ERA Downey McCarthy, guiding €2m, now marked ‘sale agreed’ on the site.

Knockrea House, Blackrock Road adjoins the site on the Blackrock Road side and has now gone sale agreed for over its €1.4m AMV

And, to the north, behind trees on a raised site on the city end of the Blackrock Road is Knockrea House, an 1835 private home on an acre that went for sale in May for €1.4m and is sale agreed at a higher sum, yet to appear on the Price Register.

Cushman & Wakefield Cork MD, Peter O’Flynn, and surveyor Philip Horgan, described the setting of their Monahan Road offer, c 200ms east of Kennedy Park and less than a kilometre from the Elysian, as “an established residential and commercial location, with nearby occupiers including the Marina Market, Cleve Quarter and Business Park, Monahan Road Business Park, Tellengana House, Lawley House and the Cube office building. There is a real potential for an extensive development.”

The zoning, under the Cork City Development Plan 2022 – 2028, is for mixed urban development uses, “to ensure the creation of a vibrant and sustainable urban area. The zoning lends to development of residential, commercial, or mixed-use development, subject to planning permission.” The site has 80m frontage to Monahan Road, and at €2.75m (exclusive) C&W say they are “expecting keen interest from both developers and investors.

“Obviously, the docklands have been targeted by both Central Government and Cork City Council with substantial financial support pledged for improved infrastructure and public transport.” “Monahan Road, connecting the city with the new Marina Park and Páirc Ui Chaoimh, has been approved for substantial upgrading and these works are to commence in 2023. The newly announced direct funding of apartment construction by the Department of Housing could unlock the development potential for residential blocks in regional cities.”