Cairn PLC start Cork site development on 472-unit project near Douglas village

Cork site for €150m+ development of houses, apartments and duplexes called Bayly has been a long time coming, close to a new school under construction. Sales won't start until 2022 in a multi-phase, multi-year roll-out, say Cairn PLC

View from the entrance into the Cairn Homes residential development site for 472 units at Carrigaline Road/Carr's Hill, Castletreasure , Co Cork.

SITE development work has started for a €150m-plus new homes development by PLC developers Cairn, on a valley site on the edge of Cork’s Douglas village, close to a new school being built by BAM.

Called Bayly, the 472-units scheme on the Carrigaline Road at Castletreasure is 2015-founded Cairn PLC’s first scheme in Cork, having acquired a number of sites in Ireland via a €503m Ulster Bank portfolio sale with Lone Star, Project Clear.

Castletreasure site acquired by  Cairn PLC was reoffered in 2016 for €25 million but is now being developed in 2021 by Cairn PLC for 472 units

Cairn bought around the same time another PLC, Glenveagh, entered the Cork market; while Glenveagh has continued to expand its presence and has recorded several hundred Cork sales to date, notably at Blackrock and Maryborough Hill, Cairn has not, until now, made any concrete site moves in Munster.

Cairn, which has stated an aim to build 2,500 Irish homes in 2021, primarily in Dublin and Leinster, has 16 sites listed on its website including Dublin, Kilkenny, Kildare, and Wicklow, has two sites in the wings in Galway, and Castletreasure in Cork.

Having acquired The Project Clear sites, Cairn quite swiftly sought to sell three off its Cork sites, the Good Shepherd Convent in Sunday’s Well (now gutted by fire and in new hands,) a site at Victoria Cross and 52 acres at Castletreasure, Douglas, which had been associated with Cork developers Frinailla, in a €30m offer.

Left unsold at its 2016 €25m price guide (getting offers of c €18m via agents Savills), was the largest site,Castletreasure lands of 52 acres opposite Douglas Golf Club, in a greenfield valley setting. Frinailla had bought it at market peak, in the mid-2000s, to relocate Douglas GAA club from the village and funding the swap via house sales here also.

Contractors Sisk are doing preliminary infrastructure and services work. No main contractor for builds has yet been appointed.

Cairn PLC got planning approval in October 2019 via a Strategic Housing Development (SHD) application with Meitheal Architects for this Castletreasure site, after an oral hearing looking at some particular issues such as stormwater management.

Construction Site activity at Carr's Hill, Co Cork, where a new school is under delivery.

The planning grant — one of the larger in the Cork area in recent years — is for 234 semi-detached and terraced houses, 160 apartments and 78 duplexes, with 4.4 ha of parkland and amenity space.

In giving a construction greenlight, Bord Pleanala said the edge-of-Douglas development constituted reasonable development and “would not seriously injure the residential or visual amenities of the area or of property in the vicinity, would be acceptable in terms of urban design, height, and quantum of development.”

Contractors Sisk are on site, doing services, infrastructure, a bridge and partial road realignment.

No selling agents are as yet appointed, and it’s not known if Cairn has agreed pre-construction deals for any tranches of the scheme.

A spokesperson last night said “Cairn looks forward to bringing new homes in Castletreasure to the market during 2022 in what will be a multi-phase, multi-year development.”

DETAILS: www.cairnhomes.com