Lucky buyers may treasure this weekend's Bayly new Cork Castletreasure buys from €445k

Firm selling prices for new builds only revealed on launch this weekend: they start 'from' €445,000 for a three-bed townhouse

Sat, 22 Jun, 2024 - 11:50

Property Editor Tommy Barker reports

Castletreasure, Douglas, Cork
from €445,00/€560,000
Size	1,254/1,485/1,703 sq ft
Bedrooms	3/4
Bathrooms	3
BER	A2

NEW Douglas homes, on a site by a new national school, finally get a sales launch this weekend after a protracted c. 20-year route to development and at a ramped-up pace of four houses completed a week.

Three and four-bed showhouses open this weekend from noon

Up for sale from this Saturday morning are the first 30 private three and four-bed homes, of 193 to be sold at Bayly, Castletreasure.

It’s part of a €200m+ residential development to total 472 units by Cairn Homes in its first foray into Cork.

Prices for the 1,254 sq ft three-bedroom homes (terraced and semi-detached) are ‘from’ €445,000, while the four-beds of 1,485 sq ft+ are ‘from’ €560,000 – which is above the €500,000 Help to Buy threshold.

Landscaped grounds after huge site works were needed on sloping site

They get released onsite this weekend via Catherine McAuliffe and Kate Buttimer of Savills, who have 4,000 registered names to work through, with two showhouses open on site from noon.

Set just off Carr’s Hill/Carrigaline Road, by the new Douglas Rochestown Educate Together 24-classroom multi-storey national school delivered by construction company BAM, the site is reached via a multimillion-euro access bridge and extensive valley groundworks done by Sisks.

Planning was secured by a Strategic Housing Development application to An Bord Pleanala with Meitheal architects, with groundworks on the 51-acre multi-level lands, with retaining walls and green walls.

To date, Cairn has built more than 8,000 new homes since being set up in 2015 and it bought this Douglas site almost 10 years ago, one of three in Cork via a €500m Ulster Bank Project Clear loan sale. The Douglas land had previously been acquired a decade earlier by Cork-based Frinailla developers, who planned to relocate the Douglas GAA club out of the village.

Another developer, Castlelands, also had plans to move Douglas Golf Club from its position on Maryborough Hill.

Today, Cairn’s Bayly looks out over that retained golf course, over Douglas’s Maryborough Hill, across the basin of the city, with both County Hall and the Elysian towers and hills on the northside visible from the top of the site where two of the showhomes open from this weekend.

The full scheme is for 472 homes across a mix of sizes and tenure types, including 234 semi-detached and terraced houses, 160 apartments and 78 duplexes, with 193 in all being offered to private buyers.

There are 98 apartments being constructed on Carr’s Hill for release on the Croi Conaithe scheme, which will be for owner-occupiers in the private market.

The remainder of units, a mix of apartments and housing, are currently occupied, predominantly cost rental, in the possession of Tuath Housing, and there are some Part V.

The site includes 4.4 hectares of parkland, biodiversity pockets and amenity space, with walkways and greenways being delivered, including the Ballybrack woods route to Douglas and a longer one in train to Carrigaline and Douglas, while the M8 is also making its way nearby, out to Ringaskiddy.

Despite the starting price points, very keen interest is anticipated because of the location, A2 ratings (air to water, via rads, with heat recovery) and the speed of delivery down to a tight schedule. The timber frames are coming from suppliers FastHouse in Limavady in Northern Ireland, where a 250,000 sq ft factory produces 2,500 frames a year for Irish and UK builders.

Houses at Bayly are finished in Ibstock brick with reconstituted stone detailing and come with fitted Kube kitchen and appliances, tiling, sanitary ware and built-ins.

Work from home? Bed four is a flexible space

They are painted white internally, with flooring choices left to buyers.

Fit-out at the three and four-bed show units is by Cathy Angelini, of Flamingo Interior Design.

Viewers are likely to be especially impressed by the main bedroom in the three-bed layout, with deep windows in sections, as well as the maximising of storage space in finished under-stair areas off the plumbed utility spaces, with pull-down stair access to attics for storage.

VERDICT: Said to be linked by name to an old Douglas family called Bayly, this site has been a very long time coming and, during the two decades, infrastructure and alternative routes have really stepped up.