All eyes on three prime property sites on the market in Cork
One out of the three properties being sold in the heart of Cork; Convent Road, Blackrock, Cork
Developers and new home buyers are delighted to see three exciting prime development opportunities come on the market in the heart of Cork.
The three properties include 2.3 acres with planning for 26 dwellings in Glanmire, a prime 3-acre site in Blackrock, and an elevated site at Kinsale Industrial Park overlooking Kinsale Harbour.
Not surprisingly, selling agents Savills are already receiving significant interest in all three properties.
"We are receiving calls for all three properties," says James O'Donovan, a senior surveyor with Savills, based in Cork. "It is rare to have sites of this quality coming onto the market. To have three at the same time is remarkable."
People will be very familiar with all three locations.
A ready-to-go residential development site, next to a €15m nursing-home development and the O’Flynn Group’s Ballinglanna scheme of 600 homes, is for sale as a chance to build 26 homes.
Being sold on, on the edge of Cork’s Glanmire, is a 2.3-acre land parcel, with full planning permission (FPP) for 26 homes, primarily townhouses, with some semi-ds, spanning two- to four-beds, of 1,000 sq ft to 1,367 sq ft.
It's ideally located on the Glyntown Road with all of life’s essential amenities within easy access, such as bus stop, schools, creches, playgrounds, sporting facilities including GAA and Soccer clubs, shopping centre, restaurants, bars, the Dunkettle Interchange, Jack Lynch Tunnel including the M8 Cork-Dublin road.
Agents James O’Donovan and Peter O’Meara, of Savills, price the residential site at €1.25m, equating to €48,000 per stand.
"It's rare that a site with full planning permission comes to the market," said James, "And one that only consists of 26 homes, it would suit a lot of developers. Not only that, funding is a lot easier on a site with planning permission, pillar banks such as AIB and Bank of Ireland are more open to lending on sites with planning permission than without." he continued.
Being sold on behalf of a private family, it’s set at the lower end of lands sold three years ago by Savills to Aperee (part of Blackbee Healthcare Fund), part of the mix at Glanmire Rectory, which fetched €2.3m after several years on the market at a higher price.
The period, red-brick building is being integrated into a 100-bed unit in a building complex of over 60,000 sq ft.
The neighbouring O’Flynn Group’s Ballinglanna will total some 608 homes, plus amenities, and the Price Register shows 120 sales with a Ballinglanna-Glanmire address, with the larger detached in excess of €500,000.
Prices here, for the 26 townhouses and some semis, will be at the affordable end of the scale, and the sale may catch the eye of AHBs and other bodies, as well as builders.
There are further access options to the city via the Lower Glanmire Road/Tivoli, or to the North Ring Road, while other routes will open up more fully over the hill to the Dunkathel Interchange, where upgrade works are now well-advanced, and, once completed, that may open up other land banks just immediately east of the city.
Very close to the village, this niche, 26-unit, 2.3-acre site currently holds a detached house and garage, which will be demolished to facilitate development, with sewer/water services to hand.Â
A second multimillion-euro Blackrock village Cork property sale is in the offing for a religious order, who sold their historic convent there almost 20 years ago for €13m, "In terms of address, you won't get better than here," said James.
Coming to market this week, with a €4m-plus guide price, is a plot of 3.26 acres in the transformed suburban Cork harbour village, where hundreds of new homes and apartments have now been built on former convent owned lands, and where the Ursuline Sisters have had a presence for 250 years.
The sale offer comprises a walled-in site, accessed off Convent Avenue, of over three acres, which currently contains an 8,700 sq ft two-story modern building, with 16 bedrooms (15 of them en suite) and facilities.
Most likely to be developed for housing, it also has scope for a nursing home/ retirement village.
James O'donovan describes the Ursuline Order’s recent residential enclave on 3.26 acres, with a 16-bed building, as an unencumbered opportunity and “a prime development site in one of Cork’s most desirable and sought-after residential addresses”.
Against a backdrop of the housing shortage and the Government’s Housing for All plan for 300,000 new homes by 2030, “there’s a real shortage of top-quality development land in Cork’s top-tier residential locations — and this certainly ticks that box” said James. Asserting that “a development site of this quality has already attracted the attention of local and national developers.”Â
Future development at this €4m-plus guided site could span private, social, or Approved Housing Bodies, or nursing home/retirement communities. And, a buyer could get short-term income from the rental of the 16-bed building, with communal facilities — laundry, utility, parking — suggest Savills, whose previous estate agency incarnation as Hamilton Osborne King handled the original €13m 32-acre land and convent sale for the Ursulines in 2002.
They add that apartments at the converted 18th century Blackrock House achieved sales values between €300,000 and €700,000, while four-bed semi-detached houses in Eden’s Blackrock Crescent were fetching about €440,000 in 2019.
The property now for sale by way of the private treaty is situated along Blackrock’s Convent Road. It’s level, private, and landscaped, which “will assist in creating a secluded and exclusive setting for any future development”.
The selling agents predict “a good level of interest in the property not only from developers but a range of purchasers across multiple sectors given the property’s flexibility.
“There’s no doubt that developers both locally and nationally will have an interest given the location and strong sales and rental values that are achieved in Blackrock, but we also anticipate other interest from the nursing home sector who have been very active in the market over the last couple of years.”Â
"This is the last remaining undeveloped site in that park," said James. "In comparison to other industrial parks, this is good value."
The subject property comprises an elevated greenfield site that extends to approximately 1.14 hectares (2.8 acres) in total. It is situated in Kinsale Industrial Park and remains the only undeveloped site within the park. As a result, it is the last opportunity for incoming purchasers to develop a purpose-built unit to cater to their specific needs.
The Industrial Park is currently home to a number of other retail and office occupiers which includes Bandon Co-Op and Sporting ID. Access to the site is via Farm Lane which provides a quick and efficient connection not only to the harbour and town centre but also to Cork Airport and Cork city centre.
At present, the land is governed by the Bandon Kinsale Municipal District Local Area Plan 2017 and is zoned "Busines and General Employment". A draft of the Cork County Development Plan 2022/2028 was released in May 2021 with the subject lands being zoned as "Business & General Development".
The subject property is suitable for a number of end uses such as light industry, wholesale and non-retail trading uses, car showroom and small / medium scale manufacturing.
For more information on these properties call James O'Donovan; 0214271371 or Savills; 021-4271371
