Potential for €340k Horgan’s Quay homes as part of 302-unit apartment scheme
Computer generated image of Horgan's Quay €160m mixed use development, including the two completed office blocks in the foreground and proposed residential behind the row of trees.
DEVELOPERS of a 302-unit residential block on Horgan’s Quay, earmarked for cost-rental housing, are in talks to clear the way for a third of the apartments to be sold to owner/occupiers.
Clarendon Properties/BAM are in discussions with the government’s Housing Agency to see if agreement can be reached to allow the sale of c100 apartments to owner/occupiers under the Croí Cónaithe (Cities) subsidised building scheme.
If agreement is reached, Ronan Downing, development director with Clarendon Properties, reckons they can bring the riverside apartments to market with a starting price of €340,000.
“First time buyers will be very much the target. A subsidy would go a long way towards making the apartments more affordable. You’re talking €340,000 upwards, depending on what floor you are on,” Mr Downing said.
The Croí Cónaithe (Cities) scheme, a fund to support the building of apartments for sale to owner-occupiers, is designed to encourage people to live in cities. Developers are subsidised to cover the cost of building the apartments, where the cost of building is greater than the market sale price.
While Clarendon/BAM have delivered two state-of-the-art office blocks on the Horgan’s Quay site as part of a €160m mixed-use development, the residential element had stalled due to costs. The project is back on track now following backing from the state- sponsored Land Development Agency (LDA). The LDA told the Irish Examiner last month that the majority of the apartments will be made available at cost-rental, which equates to at least 25% below the regular local market rate.
Mr Downing said he believed the best option was to provide both cost-rental and apartments for sale to owner/occupiers.
“I think everyone sees the benefit of doing a mix of rental and apartments for acquisition. It’s better for the city,” he said.
He said the “best case scenario” is that the developers will break ground on residential at Horgan’s Quay next month. The first apartments are due to be delivered by the end of 2025. The overall plan is for 108 one-bed and 194 two-bed units.
The LDA’s involvement is under Project Tosaigh, a government initiative to unlock land that is not being developed by private sector owners due to financing and other constraints. The agency is already active in Cork City with work underway to deliver 265 homes at the former St Kevin’s Hospital site in Shanakiel, The agency also has plans for 350 homes at an ESB site in Wilton.
The Horgan’s Quay development will be the docklands’ first large-scale residential scheme, with more to follow on the opposite bank of the River Lee via O’Callaghan Properties, who announced a €350m south docks development plan at the end of 2021. It includes proposals for 1,300 apartments across 10 blocks, pending the relocation of Gouldings to Marino Point. The relocation, granted by Cork County Council, is currently the subject of an appeal to An Bord Pleanála. OCP were the last developers to build large-scale speculative apartments in the city – at Lancaster Gate on the Western Road in the early 2000s. They delivered 150 apartments across three blocks before the project stalled around 2008, when the crash came. The last two blocks were only completed in 2022, after OCP entered an agreement with approved housing body Clúid, to provide the city’s first cost-rental homes.
At Horgan’s Quay, the apartment scheme will consist of a single stepped block, up to 11 storeys in height, wrapping around three sides of a raised courtyard. A former Station Master’s house will form the centrepiece. It’s one of three protected structures that are part of the site’s industrial heritage. The other two, a good’s shed and carriage shed, have already been restored.
The six-acre campus, on a 300-year lease from CIE, is adjacent to and has direct access to Cork City’s main rail terminus, Kent Station. The campus is shared with the 120-bed Dean Hotel, which was recently sold by Keillan Ltd, in which Paddy McKilllen Jnr has a 50% stake, to British property group Lifestyle Hospitality Capital (LHC) and New-York-based Elliott Investment Management. Press Up, a bars and restaurants group set up by McKillen and his business partner Matt Ryan, continues to run the hotel.
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