Lift-off for Cork's South Docks as work finally due to start on 103 homes

The long-awaited Cork South Docks regeneration officially begins with 103 A-rated homes on Kennedy Quay, signaling a major transformation for the area by LDA and OCP.

Five years after plans were unveiled to transform Cork City’s South Docks, work is finally due to get underway, starting with 103 apartments on Kennedy Quay, in a partnership between the LDA and developer O’Callaghan Properties.

The long-awaited regeneration of Cork’s South Docks is finally set to get underway with the construction of more than 100 homes in a partnership between the Land Development Agency (LDA) and O’Callaghan Properties (OCP).

The new homes on Kennedy Quay, next to the River Lee and adjacent to the iconic former Odlums flour mill, signals the start of a wider transformation of the South Docks into a vibrant new neighbourhood.

A generated image of the proposed apartments to the side and rear of the iconic Odlums building.

Construction of the 103 riverside apartments — to the side and rear of the Odlums building — is due to commence soon and will take about 27 weeks to complete, meaning residents could be living in the first of the new A-rated homes by the end of 2028. The 103 homes include 45 one-bedroom, 42 two-bedroom, and 16 three-bedroom apartments.

OCP managing director Brian O’Callaghan said the announcement is “a key milestone in the roll out of OCP’s activity on Kennedy Quay” and that it “reflects a considerable body of collaborative work with the Land Development Agency and Cork City Council”.

He added that the company will be announcing further plans “for the sequential development of what is the largest site in Cork’s South Docks in the coming months”.

In addition to delivering new homes, Mr O’Callaghan said partnership with the LDA would, “serve as a catalyst for further development in Cork’s South Docks” — in line with the ‘first mover’ principle highlighted by LDA chief John Coleman: The idea that commitment to a major project can trigger wider investment and regeneration.

Mr Coleman said the house building project, in a prime location in Cork’s South Docks would “serve as a key component in the wider and ongoing transformation of the Cork Docklands, which the LDA is actively involved in”.

Mr Coleman said: “All the homes will be A-rated and well served, with Cork city centre and the area’s key attractions and amenities within easy walking distance.”

Confirmation that work is due to begin on South Docks comes almost five years after OCP unveiled its €350m game-changing docklands transformation plan for a 4.16-acre site between Kennedy Quay, Victoria Rd, Marina Walk, and Mill Rd.

The plan included apartments, 420,000sq ft of office space, retail, and a rehabilitation hospital, as well as the restoration and re-purposing of the red-brick Odlums building — originally constructed as a granary — and previously a busy and distinctive landmark on the city’s quays, housing offices, storage facilities, and an active mill. OCP is planning to announce details of its Odlums restoration and redevelopment plans “in the coming months”.

The developer is also continuing to search for a suitable operator for its proposed 130-bed rehabilitation hospital, originally intended to be run by French healthcare group Orpea, who were subsequently engulfed in a major controversy involving poor treatment and financial misconduct in its French nursing home operations.

News that work is finally due to start on Kennedy Quay will come as a relief to those living and working in Cork City for whom the only visible change in the five years since the plan was announced was the demolition of the 33m-high R & H Hall grain silos in early 2024.

The involvement of the LDA in kick-starting the South Docks development is under Project Tosaigh, a Government initiative run by the LDA to get housing projects moving where developers have planning permission, but construction has stalled due to financing or market conditions.

It’s the first Project Tosaigh partnership between the LDA and OCP — one of the country’s largest privately-owned property development firms — and follows on from the agency successfully partnering across the river, on the North Docks, with BAM/Clarendon Properties, where 302 apartments will shortly come on stream, having initially stalled due to financial constraints.

Deeper into the South Docks, significant progress has also been made in an agency partnership with Glenveagh at Marina Depot, where 337 new homes are under construction, with a completion date of mid-2027.

The agency is also on site delivering 267 homes at the former St Kevin’s Hospital site in Shanakiel, and it has secured planning permission for 345 homes on former ESB lands in Wilton, and 147 at Anglesea Terrace in Cork city centre as part of a partnership with Cork City Council.

Meanwhile, a site in Kilbarry in Cork, with the potential to deliver about 1,000 homes, has been transferred to the LDA by IDA Ireland; while another in Cork’s South Docks, with the potential to deliver 300 homes, has been transferred to the agency by Bord na Móna (former Sutton’s Coal yard on Monahan Rd). Homes in Tivoli Docks is part of a longer term LDA plan.

The new riverside apartments on Kennedy Quay will have an enviable location: On the waterfront, near key locations such as Kent Station, the Marina Promenade, and Páirc Uí Chaoimh, and within walking distance of the proposed route of the Luas Cork light rail system.

Meanwhile, as part of the work on Kennedy Quay, the external facades of the Odlums building are to be retained. Significant features of architectural and industrial heritage interest from the building have already been removed and salvaged, and it is intended to feature some of these internally and externally within future phases of the wider Kennedy Quay development.

Welcoming the announcement of the South Docks apartment building project, Valerie O’Sullivan, the council’s chief executive, said it was “further evidence that the Government’s commitment to Cork City Docklands through the towns and cities regeneration investment fund is bearing fruit”.

The Government previously committed €353m to the Cork Docklands regeneration project under the urban regeneration and development fund and more recently approved a preliminary business case for public enabling infrastructure.

The Cork Docklands project is the country’s largest urban regeneration, and is seen as crucial to balanced development of the region as a whole. Ultimately it’s expected to be the base for up to 25,000 jobs with 10,000 new homes built, when completed, in 2038.

However, it hasn’t been all plain sailing. One proposed large-scale €300m residential scheme that would have seen more than 1,300 apartments built by OCP at the Gouldings Fertiliser 32-acre site on Centre Park Rd is on hold after it was rejected by An Coimisiún Pleanála — albeit a 10-year planning permission does leave some wiggle room.

There have also been concerns about spiralling costs, with the overall cost of the regeneration project put at €1.062bn earlier this year, from an original estimated cost of €595m five years ago.