Two major new hotels set to transform Cork city as construction begins on key sites

Two major hotel developments on South Mall and South Terrace signal fresh investment and renewed momentum in Cork’s growing hospitality sector

Computer generated image of the planned South Terrace aparthotel viewed from the adjacent Cotters St Image: JMK Group

Two new hotels are about to get off the ground in Cork City, one on South Mall, which Irish hotelier Shay Livingstone hopes to commence in the first half of 2026, and a second on South Terrace, where work is starting on a 103-bedroom aparthotel by the British-based JMK hospitality group.

Details of the planned €18.5m hotel at No 71 South Mall, formerly home to National Irish Bank, were shared on Wednesday night with members of the Cork business community by Mr Livingstone, a seasoned hotelier who previously ran the Rochestown Park Hotel. 

He intends to call the 58-bedroom boutique hotel The Joshua, after his son, and he has engaged local firms to do the work. 

Co Clare-registered financial advisory company Finbuild Ltd are his funding partners in the project, which will see a long-vacant former bank building returned to use in the city’s financial business district.

Separately, the JMK Group, owned by the Kajani family and chaired by Pakistani-Irish businessman John Kajani, has served notice that it is commencing work on the aparthotel on South Terrace, for which planning permission was granted in 2022.

New application

Planning permission for the South Mall hotel was granted in 2019 to previous owners but has lapsed, so a new application is pending. “The reapplication is imminent and will be lodged this month”, Mr Livingstone said, adding that it will be made through his company Cadcove Holdings Ltd.

There are no changes to the successful 2019 application when permission was granted to add two new storeys to the terraced four-storey property, including one five-storey section and a six-storey building fronting onto adjoining Morgan St, where the new hotel entrance will be. The original planning grant also allowed for a roof deck at fifth-floor level and the conversion of the main banking hall into a bar/restaurant/cafe.

Hotelier Shay Livingstone expects work on a 58-bed boutique hotel to get underway at 71 South Mall, in the first half of 2026

Mr Livingstone acquired the building in 2023 for a sum in excess of €3m from hoteliers/investors Ray Byrne and Eoin Doyle, who had planned to redevelop it themselves but later sold it on, amid no sign of a timeline for the long-awaited event centre on nearby South Main St. The building has been vacant since 2012, when Danske Bank/National Irish Bank closed its 27 Irish branches.

Mr Livingstone intends to use all Irish companies for the build project, including Donoughmore-based Summerhill Construction, which is behind several high-profile projects such as the UCC Centre of Executive Education at No1 Lapps Quay (originally the Cork Savings Bank). The architects are Reddy A+U, while QS on the project is Ballincollig-based MCOR Consultants. The build programme is expected to take 16 months.

Mr Livingstone set about raising €2m in EIIS funding (a tax-relief scheme for investors in Irish businesses) in 2024 and has since brought Finbuild Ltd on board as funding partners.

He told the Irish Examiner that the hotel will have “a five-star feel”.

While No 71 is not a protected structure, it has been deemed to be of architectural interest by the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. An Architectural Heritage Impact Assessment by conservation experts JCA said the building’s Victorian banking hall “is an increasingly rare survivor in Cork City given the closure or reconfiguration of other 19th and early 20th-century banks in the city”.

The building has an interesting history. According to the JCA report, Pigot’s Directory of Cork of 1824 records John Woodroffe as living at No 71 at this time. Mr Woodroffe was a physician and surgeon to the South Infirmary Hospital and founder of the first school of anatomy in Cork. The County and City of Cork Post Office Directory of 1842 records a “Bank of Ireland” at No 71; this was later replaced by the current structure, which was built in and around 1853. 

The Dictionary of Irish Architects records Mr William Francis Caldbeck as the Dublin architect who designed the current building at No 71.

Georgian buildings to be converted into aparthotel

Site clearance underway to the rear of Nos 31, 32, and 33 South Terrace, a trio of Georgian beauties once owned by noted architect  Thomas Deane. Picture: Larry Cummins

Over on South Terrace, the JMK Group project will see the conversion of three late-Georgian buildings — Nos 31, 32, and 33 — into an aparthotel, which the group previously stated would operate under the Adagio brand, a key brand in the European aparthotel market. The group bought the buildings for c€1m about a decade ago. 

The planning grant includes permission for a five-floor over-ground floor and lower-ground-floor annex to the rear of the buildings, as well as an external landscaped courtyard. 

At the other end of South Terrace, plans by UCC to build a state-of-the-art business school, on a site they paid Dairygold €17.5m for in 2019, have been shelved.

The aparthotel isn’t JMK’s first rodeo in the city. It also built the 148-bed Moxy Hotel and Residence Inn on Camden Quay, the first Marriott-branded hotel in the city, which opened in 2024.

Construction to begin at former Coliseum cinema

Meanwhile, Whitbread plc, owners of the Premier Inn brand, plan to begin construction of the city’s second Premier Inn early next year at the former Coliseum cinema/Leisureplex site, at the junction of MacCurtain St and Brian Boru St. 

Clearance for the 174-bed hotel was given by planners in October following significant design changes. Whitbread had acquired the site in 2024 for €5.5m, having opened the city’s first Premier Inn, a 187-bed hotel on Morrison’s Quay, the previous year.