Sale of Cork development land at Maglin to bring 2023 total to c€50m

Notable is that most of the deals were done off-market — nine of 15 deals done in the year — and may reflect the delays and difficulties in getting deals done due to complexities in planning, Part V, access to services, tax, finance and other hurdles, with buyers and sellers co-operating in a “meeting of minds” to secure deals.

Case in point is the €15m now finally paid for 73 acre of zoned farmland at Cork’s Maglin, just south of Ballincollig, done by agents CBRE but only just over the line after a very protracted process.

It was first heralded in these pages in the latter half of 2021 when the guide price was €20m and it was hailed as likely to be the biggest deal of that year.

In the event, the value was down by 25%, and it took two additional years to finally get over the line.

The land was offered under a title ‘maglinland’ on a CBRE data room, with an October ’21 deadline: CBRE’s Denis O’Donoghue declined to comment, other than to say a sale is now concluded.

Vendors in the €15m sale were a local business/farming family and the buyers included developers/builders Murnane & O’Shea who have been building steadily over the past five years at nearby Heathfield and who recently did a deal with Cork City Council to deliver 73 homes, two- and three-beds, under the affordable housing scheme at on-going Heathfield.

This sale may clear the way for an additional 700-800 houses on this Maglin land. Also near here, developer Colman New Homes has just sought approval for 162 homes (to include 56 apartments and duplexes) at Maglin (see Planning Notes, above), and major developer the O’Flynn Group is also acquiring land at growth-targeted Maglin, Ballincollig.

Other land deals done in the year include Ardrostig, at c €10.4m with house delivery already well in train here; Kinsale at €4.1m; Abbey Wood Midleton at €4.1m; Ringaskiddy at €5m; and East Gate at c €3m.

Maglin and Ardrostig, both west of the city and highly accessible, saw over €25m or c 50% of the year’s spend on residential development land between them

Separately, 2023 is coming to an end with some €100m worth of land in the metropolitan Cork area still on offer, most of it off-market, and including at the Ford/docks site for €30m for Glenveagh; about €22m at Ballyvolane; c €15m at Fernhill, Carrigaline; at the city’s Good Shepherd Convent close to the LDA’s site at St Kevin’s; and at Waterfall, the Grafton Group’s site, with 16 acres on offer for c €6m.