22nd July (Issue 506)
Welcome to the Origin Capital Weekly Irish Property Review. This update is designed to provide you with a full recap of the latest property news from the media over the last seven days.
MIXED-USE
Tallaght, Dublin 24 Henderson Park is understood to have secured approx. €34m from the sale of the Arena Centre. The sale of the property to M Core comes just over five years on from its purchase by Henderson Park as part of its record-setting €1.34bn purchase of Green Reit. The Arena Centre extends to 321,385 sq. ft in total and consists of a mix of retail, office and hotel. The development is 98% occupied and home to anchor tenants including Bank of Ireland, Woodies DIY and the Maldron Hotel which includes an adjoining leisure centre, and a central surface car park. While the €34m paid by M Core is substantially less than the €65m guide price Green Reit attached to the Arena Centre when it first looked to sell the scheme in 2016, the current sale did not include 63 apartments that were included as part of that original process. The Irish Times understands that M Core sold the Woodies premises to another investor upon the completion of the €34m deal. The Irish Times, 16th July
Midleton, Co. Cork A mixed-use development in four riverside blocks, with 36 apartments, 33,000 sq. ft of commercial space, multi-storey carpark, and a McDonald’s restaurant and drive-thru, has come for sale through Cushman & Wakefield with a €7.75m guide. The Watersedge scheme, developed in the early 2000s, has asset management potential as the extensive vacant commercial space, largely in shell and core condition, has scope to repurpose for possible residential use. The complex last sold in 2021 when it had an income of approx. €416,000. The guide price at that time was €5.5m, and it’s understood it was bought by BlackBee for about €5m, reflecting a net initial yield of 6.6% to 7.5% with uplift scope on new lettings and rent/rent pressure zone reviews. That rent roll has since increased to €569,544 after the 2024 rent reviews. All 36 apartments are fully let and all are two-beds, from 700 sq. ft up to 1,215 sq. ft, or averaging 810 sq. ft overall. The Examiner, 17th July
Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin The HSE is seeking more than €1.95m for Centenary House, a building located on a 0.32-acre corner site at the junction of York Road and Tivoli Terrace South. Currently used by HSE as a centre for counselling services, it extends to 12,605 sq. ft in two interlinked blocks ranging in height up to three storeys over basement building and includes a red brick single-storey former chapel to the rear. For the best part of a century, the building was used as a convent by The Little Sisters Of The Assumption. The Centenary House property is laid out with a mix of reception rooms, offices, basement storage and plant areas, making it suitable for a wide range of uses. The Irish Independent, 17th July
HSE Asset Disposals The HSE is also currently in the process of disposing of 26 properties in Cork and a similar number in Dublin, as well as 11 in Wicklow, 10 in Galway and eight in Kerry. The Irish Independent said the HSE has 142 vacant assets across 102 unique site locations which are surplus to requirements and are now at various stages of the disposal process. In addition, buildings that are vacant and under review include five in Dublin, five in Mayo and three in Offaly. The Irish Independent, 17th July
O’Connell Street, Dublin 1 Hammerson is considering selling the landmark old Carlton Cinema site. Some state bodies are understood to have expressed an interest in the 5.5 acre site, which is integral to the Government’s plans to run a metro through the heart of the city. Last September, Hammerson was granted permission by An Bord Pleanála for a €500m plan to redevelop the site which stretches from O’Connell Street to Moore Street, Henry Street and Parnell Street. The UK property group, part owner of Dundrum Town Centre, had lodged three applications in June 2021 for a mixed retail, office and residential scheme on the vast city block. Last November, campaigners were granted a judicial review of the development. Moore Street Preservation Trust sought the review claiming it contains material breaches of the Dublin City Development Plan as well as the demolition of protected structures. The Sunday Independent, 20th July
RETAIL
Jervis Street, Dublin 1 Frasers Group is vying with Starwood Capital and Pradera in a three-way battle to buy the Jervis Shopping Centre. Second-round bids for the Dublin mall, which was put on the market in recent months by its owners, Paddy McKillen Snr and Padraig Drayne, were submitted last Tuesday. Offers are thought to be around the €110m mark, not too far below the reported €120m guide price suggested by selling agents Savills and Eastdil Secured. The bidders knocked out in the first round were thought to have put in offers for below €100m. Among them were Comer Group, Lanthorn, Hines and Lugus Capital. Jervis Shopping Centre was developed in the 1990s and this is the first time it has been put on the market for sale. In 2017 AIB provided a €155m seven-year loan to refinance the shopping centre. The Sunday Times, 20th July
Grafton Street, Dublin 2 Plainemorte Investments Unlimited, a real estate vehicle controlled by JP McManus, has bought another property on Grafton Street, which was put on the market recently at a guide price of €18.8m. A new charge over numbers 65 and 66 on the capital’s primary shopping street was registered this week by Plainemorte. Massimo Dutti currently rents the property on a 15-year lease, which started in September 2013. The rent is currently just over €1m pa. The property was put on the market by Iput and its minority co-investor Aviva earlier this year. The Currency, 17th July
HOSPITALITY
Fenian Street, Dublin 2 The Alex Hotel has been told it can only proceed with plans to double its number of rooms if one floor of the proposed nine-storey building is omitted. Last year, a firm linked to the O’Callaghan Collection called Persian Properties Unlimited applied for permission to expand The Alex Hotel, a four-star, six-storey building that has 103 hotel rooms. It proposed redevelopment of buildings that face onto Cumberland Street South and Fenian Street to create 150 more rooms over nine storeys. The 102,000 sq. ft expansion would also involve demolition of the existing Hospitality House building beside The Alex. Planners at the local authority said they had concerns about the planned 33.3 metres height of the building and decided that 27.5 metres was more acceptable. This decision was appealed to An Coimisiún Pleanála with the national planning authority upholding the original decision by Dublin City Council. The Business Post, 21st July
South Main Street, Cork City An Spailpín Fánach has been put on the market through DNG with a guide price of €1.5m. First founded in 1779 across the street from the Brewery Quarter, this is the first time in 34 years that this premises will change ownership. The property has two bars and extends to approx. 4,700 sq. ft, with the building having the added benefit of three overhead two-bedroom apartments, which will be sold with the benefit of sitting tenants. The sale is the latest development to take place on the historic ‘Brewery Quarter’, which includes the People’s Park, Tuckey Street, the old Beamish & Crawford Site and South Main Street, all of which have been undergoing a major regeneration project over the past year to the value of €44m. The sale of An Spailpín Fánach is the latest amid a series of dramatic changes for Cork’s pub industry, with around 50 pubs currently for sale in Cork city and county. The Irish Examiner, 15th July
INDUSTRIAL
Liffey Valley, Dublin 22 Heitman has completed a 150,000 sq. ft self-storage facility in Liffey Valley to be operated under its U Store It brand. Chicago-headquartered Heitman acquired U Store It in 2022 and has grown the business from six to nine assets across Ireland, making it the sector’s market leader. The new Dublin facility comprises more than 2,500 storage units. There is approaching 1.4m sq. ft of self-storage space in Ireland, spread across 45 traditional self-storage stores and over 33 container-based self-storage operations, according to the Irish Self Storage Association. This equates to around 0.2 sq. ft per person, below the European average and well behind the largest European market, the UK, which is approaching 1 sq. ft per capita. Biznow, 14th July
CBRE Report Q2 2025 saw the highest quarterly level of take-up (approx. 616,500 sq. ft) since Q4 2023. This took total H1 2025 take-up to approx. 1,214,000 sq. ft, a 54% increase versus the same period last year. Also in Q2, IPUT Real Estate officially began construction on the first phase of Nexus Logistics Park. Building works began on ‘Nexus Four’, a 110,000 sq. ft facility, that is now available to lease. Seven new units completed construction in Q2 in Dublin, totalling nearly 775,000 sq. ft. This was the highest quarterly for completions since Q4 2022. The Dublin vacancy rate ticked up to 2.85% following the completion of a number of speculative units in the quarter. CBRE Industrial & Logistics Quarterly Report, 17th July
Residential/Development
Dungarvan, Co. Waterford A site with the benefit of full planning permission for the development of an 85-bedroom hotel in Dungarvan has come on the market through Cushman & Wakefield, guiding €2.125m. The site comprises 1.04 acres and is located at Davitts Quay, Richard Walsh Street and TF Meagher Street and on lands accessed from the Western Terrace. The permission allows seven storeys. The accommodation would include a mix of 42 hotel rooms in addition to 42 aparthotel rooms and one penthouse suite. The rooms will be complimented at ground floor level by two function halls, a lobby/reception area and a publicly accessible bar/cafe. The Irish Independent, 17th July
Blessington, Co. Wicklow A c. 2.5-acre development site on Blessington Main Street, whose zoning objectives include a mixed-use development and a public park, has been placed on the market through J.P&M Doyle for €1.5m. Fronting the Baltinglass Road/ N81 and the Naas Road, the property comprises a broadly rectangular shape, with road frontage on all sides. Under the Blessington Local Area Plan, most of the site is zoned objective Town Centre, with objectives for the site including the provision of mixed-use town centre infill development, with a public park/civic space measuring c. 0.7 acres integrated into the design of any development along the northern and eastern boundary of the site. The Irish Independent, 17th July
National Development Plan The Government is due to announce the details of a flagship plan to build infrastructure over the next five years, which will include €40bn for housing including water services. The revised National Development Plan will contain €100bn funding for housing, energy, water and transport projects from 2026 to 2030. Around €30bn of that figure is said to be new funding, some of that coming from the Apple tax money and the sale of AIB shares. Transport will receive €24bn, with €2bn of this for Dublin’s Metrolink. €3.5bn is earmarked for electricity services and the grid going to ESB Networks and Eirgrid. Rte.ie, 22nd July
OTHER
Ballygrennan, Co. Limerick Aedifica, the Belgian trust known for backing nursing homes in Ireland and Europe, is investing €26.5m in the development of a state-of-the-art cancer centre in Limerick. The cancer centre will be operated between UPMC and Bon Secours Health System, Ireland’s largest private hospital group, and is expected to be completed in Q4 2026. The brand-new cancer centre will form part of a larger care campus, which, in addition to medical buildings, will also include residential housing, apartments, retail units, and a care home. Aedifica acquired ownership of the land in July and has also invested in the construction budget. Building of the centre is set to begin in the coming months. Aedifica made its first investments in Ireland in early 2021. Since then, the business has created a portfolio worth over €400m, mainly focused on elderly care. The Sunday Independent, 20th July
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