€280k redone home has seen Cork City on the rise

Thousands of new jobs, including Apple's new Cork city quayside offices, all on doorstep of 5 St Patrick's Terrace

Thu, 30 Sep, 2021 - 17:00

Property Editor Tommy Barker reports Pictures John Roche

Cork City Centre
€280,000
Size	123 sq m (1,315 sq ft)
Bedrooms	3
Bathrooms	2
BER	B3

IT’S all change, change, change on the doorstep of St Patrick’s Terrace in Cork city centre: heck, it’s even all changed too in the interior of No 5, which is a new autumn market arrival.

5 (second from right) St Patrick's Terrace Lower Glanmire Road Cork

The mid-terrace, older-era home, dating back a century or so, is freshly up for sale, fresh too as a shiny new pin inside after a top-to-toe refurb and re-fit, over all three levels, and is price guided on launch at €280,000 by agents Ann O’Mahony and Gillian McDonnell of Sherry FitzGerald.

Ever-changing view towards city centre from No 5 St Patrick's Terrace

It’s just on the Kent Railway Station side of classical style St Patrick’s RC church, one of the city’s oldest at nearly 190 years of age, and No 5’s on one of several short runs of terraced homes, facing due south, facing Cork’s future.

The view to the front is all about the rapidly changing face of the city, with former shipping warehouses, storage yards and the railway station all undergoing urban renewal, and with tall towers planned at Port of Cork and by the Bus Station.

Kent Railway Station is just 100 metres away from No 5 St Patrick’s Terrace, and is the city’s last surviving train station of six in the c19th century rail heyday. There’s an historic rail link too with St Patrick’s Terrace, as the tiered space to the back of this terrace had once housed the Summerhill Rail Station, accessed from Summerhill north and which serviced lines to Youghal until the 1890s.

Today, the new, brooding, black wedge of the Dean Hotel is the brashest arrival on No 5’s doorstep, while also to the south are the new offices at Horgans’ Quay/HQ, being development by Clarendon Properties and BAM. Cork’s biggest tech employer Apple is taking further Cork city office space at Horgans Quay, and a new tower crane went up on the site at the start of September to build more offices at HQ.

Horgan's Quay HQ development and The Dean Hotel.

Just on the city side of Horgans Quay and the new Dean Hotel, offices and apartment site, developers JCD Group have completed their 250,000 sq ft office scheme, now at 90% committed occupancy.

Serving this burgeoning office quadrant, which may be home to thousands of jobs by the end of 2022, are a bevy of new cafes, coffee shops and docks and bagel bars, with McCurtain Street/the Victorian Quarter also well on the up and up, with further restaurant and hospitality offers, including the new REZz Hotel at the foot of York Street.

If those living and buying property in and around St Patrick’s Terrace had been told there’d be this pace of change and development delivery by the end of 2021, they might be forgiven for taking it with a grain of salt. Now, they take it with ground coffee, on tap from neighbourhood baristas...

The Price Register shows the most recent sales here including No 7 at €155,000 in 2020, having also sold in 2018 for €120,000, while No 3 sold back in 2010, for €85,000.

In contrast, No 5 St Patrick’s Terrace shows as having last sold in 2016 for €180,000: now the AMV is €280,000, post-makeover, which must go further than skin deep as the BER is an impressive B3.

No 5 has just over 1,300 sq ft, with a top floor en suite (with shower) main bedroom with Veluxes; the mid-level has two bedrooms plus a main bathroom with both a bath and a bidet.

At ground, there’s a slender hall straight into a stairwell inside the front door, with an open plan living/dining room to the left, front-to-back with wood-effect laminate floor and lots of storage, with rear modern gloss kitchen, fully fitted, and the sale includes all appliances. There’s access from the annex/kitchen to a prettied–up rear enclosed yard, with whitewashed walls, perspex canopy roof and gravel on ground.

The Continental European vendor shelters a bicycle out here, but to get it has to come through the house, which is up not just one, but two short flights of steps up from the Lower Glanmire Road.

St Patrick's Terrace entry point on Lower Glanmire Road

In any case, No 5 has its own enclosed private front outdoor space/seating spot, behind black-painted steps and fencing, while St Patrick’s Terrace is itself accessed up some steps and via a charming old, Victorian red-brick arch onto the Lower Glanmire Road (pic, right).

VERDICT: all the work seems to have been done at the walk-into order, cycle-by, broadly affordable and south-facing No 5, in what’s surely a bit of an inner-city and highly accessible property hot-spot on the move.