First apartments slated for Cork city quays by OCP after objection withdrawn

Construction on phase one of €350m mixed use scheme, to include 160 apartments for the AHB sector, social  housing and owner occupier markets to start in 2024

CGI of section of O'Callaghan Properties mixed use plan for Kennedy Quay, with buildings to match the height of the R&H Hall grain silos

EVOLVING Government policy and financial incentives are bringing apartment delivery to the point of viability for construction, with work finally set to start on the first significant residential development on Cork City’s docklands in 2024.

“Housing policy has been evolving to take account of commercial realities and Government initiatives are beginning to have a significant, positive impact on the residential market,” said O’Callaghan Properties (OCP) managing director Brian O’Callaghan.

He pointed to the Croí Cónaithe Cities Scheme, with grants for owner-occupiers, as well as grants for approved housing bodies (AHBs), worth €150,000 per unit, as helping to close the gap on financial viability for developers.

Odlums Building will be repurposed

Cork’s docks are earmarked for up to 20,000 residential units, at locations like Kennedy Quay, along Centre Park Rd and the Marina, at the Live at the Marquee site and on the north docks including Horgans Quay, with a number of planning permissions granted, but none yet acted upon.

Mr O’Callaghan yesterday announced OCP would commence phase one delivery of apartments on Cork’s south docks, on Kennedy Quay, after a third-party objection to a mixed-used €350m project by the Odlums Mills was withdrawn by Southern Milling, which produces animal feeds on an adjacent site.

A 2021 view of the former Odlums building and R & H Hall building on Kennedy Quay, Cork. Picture Dan Linehan

It clears the way for Cork City Council to allow work on the 4.1-acre Odlums site, with planning for 160 apartments in two sections of 80 units, plus offices.

Overall, OCP controls 31 acres on the south docks, with its own plans for over 2,000 apartments and a further planning application set to follow shortly for the nearby Gouldings site for 1,325 units. Both projects were signalled last year but have been delayed by at least one year.

Infrastructure and works on provision of utilities at the Odlum site will start in the fourth quarter of this year, with apartment construction starting in mid-2024, Mr O’Callaghan indicated.

The first phase also allows for a start on further offices, said a spokesperson, and the mixed €350m scheme includes a private rehabilitation hospital.

To date, OCP has delivered the majority of 360,000sq ft of offices just upriver, at Navigation Square, and has planning for a further 450,000sq ft at Kennedy Quay.

OCP last year delivered 88 apartments under the cost-rental model with AHB Clúid to complete a private scheme at Cork’s Lancaster Gate.

Then Taoiseach Michéal Martin welcomes residents to Cork’s First Cost Rental Scheme at Lancaster Quay in October 2022.  The scheme, Lancaster Gate at OCP's Lancaster Quay, is a mixed tenure community, comprising of 88 apartments, 73 of which are Cost Rental homes assigned by Clúid: rents  45% below

 The recent grants of €150,000 per unit to AHBs “will facilitate the ongoing delivery of apartments in our various docklands schemes,” noted Mr O’Callaghan, adding that “20% of housing built in the docklands, under our Part 5 obligations, will be social housing.”

Measures to incentivise investors are now needed, he indicated.

Passage of time:  Traffic jams on Lancaster Quay and Washington Street in 1938 as crowds flocked to the Cork International Motor Races at the Carrigrohane Circuit where 70,000 people attended.

Flour power: Odlums structure on Kennedy Quay in 2018

While welcoming the Croí Cónaithe Cities Scheme grant of up to €144,000 — available to owner-occupiers of apartments — Mr O’Callaghan said “however, the restriction to owner-occupiers will limit the effectiveness of the policy overall and negatively impact on the expansion of housing supply. A tweaking of this policy could yield dividends in terms of housing turnover and provision.

“Private and institutional investors are a critical part of a properly functioning housing market and they have, in the main, exited due to high interest rates and rent caps. They provide a huge amount of supply and their absence from the market is not a positive, as some seem to think, but a huge deficit,” he argued.