600-home Cork City development goes to tender as council invites expressions of interest
Aerial photos showing the advanced site works which have been completed at the city council-owned land bank on the old Whitechurch Road. File picture.
Cork City Council has invited expressions of interest for an enormous 600-unit housing estate on a large publicly-owned site.
The public procurement competition is part of plans to deliver a major new residential community of social and affordable housing on the city's northside at the 54-acre landbank.
In the council's ownership for a number of years, the site is in the townland of Kilnap, between the Old Whitechurch Road and the Old Mallow Road, and has been subject to extensive enabling works to prepare the land for housing development as the first phase of a two-stage process.
The open call to the market is the first step of the second stage for the process. The city council's invitation for expressions of interest for the site is published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) and advertised on E-tenders at www.etenders.gov.ie.
Last month city officials agreed to begin the public procurement process two years after city councillors voted to begin enabling preparations on the site.
This included developing water infrastructure, building access roads with provisions for electricity, gas, phone and other utilities, the burying of overhead power and communications lines, and renewal works on the Old Whitechurch Road and Old Mallow Road.
In an announcement published on the city council's website, the invitation said: "Cork City Council is seeking expressions of interest from candidates to participate in a public procurement competition to deliver a substantial social and affordable housing scheme of circa. 600 homes incorporating retail, educational, and amenity facilities at Kilnap, between the Old Whitechurch Road and the Old Mallow Road, Cork City.
"The scheme, one of the largest of its nature in the region will be developed on a landbank measuring circa. 22 hectares / 54 acres in area which is zoned as residential in the Cork City Development Plan 2015 -2021."
After qualified bidders have been selected, a dialogue will begin with city officials as part of the second step leading to the issue of public tenders in step three.
The planning process and construction will then begin as part of step four.
