BAM has no plans to sell long-idle Cork city-centre site

The site of the old Tax Office on Sullivans Quay, Cork. Picture Dan Linehan

Developer BAM has ruled out selling a high-profile site in the heart of Cork City which it has failed to develop six years after being cleared by planners to build a hotel and offices.

The Sullivan’s Quay site is one of two key city centre sites which BAM was expected to develop but both of which lie idle. The second is across the river from Sullivan’s Quay, on South Main St, a 1.8ha site which was previously part of the former Beamish & Crawford brewery. The latter is earmarked for an event centre.

Site of the proposed Cork Event Centre on South Main Street, Cork Pic: Larry Cummins

BAM has rejected the suggestion that it’s holding off on the Sullivan’s Quay development until a decision is made on the event centre, on which the sod was turned in 2016. Cork City Council’s chief executive Ann Doherty told journalists recently that all that remained was for a memo to go to Cabinet for a decision to be made. While the Government has promised €57m towards the €85m-€100m cost of the event centre, Ms Doherty admitted there was an additional “inflationary ask”.

She refused to put a figure on what that “ask” was. The cost to the State of funding the project has tripled since 2014.

Over on Sullivan’s Quay, after BAM’s permission for a 193-bed hotel and offices lapsed last year, they sought to extend the consent but were turned down by City Council planners who said there was no legal provision to do so.

Since then calls have been made by local politicians to put the vacant site to other uses, including as a city park/interim green space for public use.

However BAM continues to insist that it is “reviewing options for the development of the site”.

A spokesperson more or less repeated what BAM told this newspaper last October, blaming market conditions, such as “construction inflation and rising interest rates”, for the delay in going ahead with development.

The spokesperson said they were “disappointed that their request for an extension to the planning permission wasn’t granted”, but that they were keeping their options under review.

BAM first got permission to develop the former tax office site on Sullivan’s Quay 15 years ago, when it was cleared to build a hotel and offices in 2009, having bought the former government buildings from the Revenue Commissioners in 2006. However, the project didn’t proceed as the country had entered a recession.

In 2017, they applied for a similar mixed-use development, including a 12-storey cylindrical tower, and were given permission for the proposal. To make way for the development, demolition experts O’Kelly Bros (currently involved in the demolition of R&H Hall grain silos at Kennedy Quay) knocked the former tax office which had been part of the city skyline for almost 40 years. Revenue relocated to Blackpool. The rubble from the demolition remained on site causing dust pollution and the developer was eventually forced to move it on by the City Council. However, the site remains idle as BAM continues to contemplate its future. It will, however, be subject to the new Residental Zoned Land Tax from this year, which is applied annually at a rate of 3% of the land’s market value. The site is near tourist attractions Elizabeth Fort and Nano Nagle Place