Site on Cork's Airport Road could land hotel operator and 300 apartments
Ballycurreen site at the foot of Cork city's Airport Hill and Kinsale Road now has full planning for a 158-bed hotel and 300 apartments
HOTEL groups are running the rule over a Cork site up for sale with planning permission recently secured after third party appeals, approved now for a 158-bed hotel, in a profile building of up to eight storeys on the Kinsale Road at Ballycurreen, between the city and the international airport.
The hotel site of 2.15 acres is part of a c seven acre mixed use land parcel at Ballycurreen which also include plans for c 130 apartments and duplexes in 12 blocks of three storeys each as well as other neighbourhood uses.
Quite famously, the site was part of two land parcels totalling 11 acres which were gifted to a Cork charity and which sold at auction in 2006 for record €27 million, bought by two different developers, locals O’Brien & O’Flynn, paying over €13m for 7.23 acres, and Galway developer Gerry Barrett, developer of Galway’s G Hotel among other interests, also paying a similar sum for just over four acres on the N40 side of the road.
Often describe as ‘Gateway,’ being on the Kinsale and airport approach rod to the city and south ring road, both sites subsequently changed hands for lesser sums, with the 7.23 acre holding on the left leaving the city marketed a few years with a €3m guide and described at the time as “one of the best mixed-use sites to come to the market,” by Savills.
It was bought for an undisclosed sum by a consortium, led by developer/investor Denis McBarron and which recently achieved planning permission after third party appeals from both Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) and long-established neighbours, sweet makers Ferrero.
Estate agent Sam Kingston of Casey & Kingston is quietly marketing hotel portion of the consortium’s seven acre holding, reporting “genuine hotelier interest, we’re taking to everyone, it’s such a strong profile site and there is a demand for more hotel rooms in Cork.” He is offering the hotel site, to be accessed off the Kinsale Road, at c €3.5 million and the plans include a rooftop bar and restaurant.
Other hotels in the wings for Cork are primarily in the city centre, such as ones under construction at Camden Quay and even more advance at Morrisons Island, with plans also in the pipeline for South Terrace, while there are two existing, well-established hotels at Cork airport.
Meanwhile a spokesperson for the consortium controlling this Kinsale Road site said work could start shortly on the residential element of the mixed use site, worth a notional €50 million, but declined to comment if they were in discussion with end users/agencies on a sale/joit development.
DETAILS: Casey & Kingston 021-4271127
