9th December (Issue 526)
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.
Hospitality
Nationwide The iNua Collection, a regional hotels group backed by private investors, is set to go to the market in the new year as it looks to deliver an exit for investors. The group is likely to be valued at approx. €100m. Cork-based BlackBee, which went into liquidation in 2023, raised nearly €47m from loan note holders for the iNua Collection in 2018. Investors had expected a return within five years. The company operates eight hotels, including some Radisson Blu hotels, Muckross Park in Killarney and Tullamore Court. Management of iNua, who also run Cliste Hospitality, a third-party hotel management company, are keen to continue to have some involvement in the running of the hotels. Latest accounts for iNua show it had a turnover of €71.1m last year and a pre-tax loss of just under €2.7m. In an update sent to investors in September, the group said management were “pleased that occupancy at the hotels (an average of 80%) is outperforming our competitors”. The company posted EBITDA of €10.71m for last year, down from €11.43m in 2023. In 2023, iNua refinanced its portfolio with a €70m loan. Latest accounts show it owed Allianz Debt Investments and EQ Ecred Investments €69.75m. Sales proceeds of €100m could mean BlackBee investors recover roughly 60% of their investment. The Sunday Times, 7th December
Kilkenny City The Kilkenny Ormonde Hotel has been acquired by Lanthorn on behalf of TMR Hotel Collection. It was acquired from Jerry O’Reilly for up to €32m. Owned by Austrian investor Thomas Roggla, TMR has about 2,000 hotel rooms in Ireland. The Kilkenny Ormonde Hotel has 118 bedrooms and the sale was being pitched to include an adjacent multi-storey carpark. It was part of a sale of two properties being handled by JLL and dubbed Project Abbey. The other property included in the sales process was the Absolute Hotel in Limerick. The Irish Independent, 4th December
Dublin 2 Leonardo Hotels acquired the Hard Rock hotel in Dublin for just over €34m, newly filed accounts reveal. While the deal was revealed by the Business Post in July 2024, no details about the value of it, or how it was financed, were made public at the time. Accounts for Pebble Shore Limited, the parent company established for the deal by Leonardo’s owner Fattal, which is behind the former Jurys Inn hotel chain, show it acquired Rockyvale Limited, the hotel’s owner, for €34.1m. The investment included €33.5m on acquisition, plus an additional €600,000 cash infusion post-acquisition. It was financed by the company’s loans from banks and related parties. Pebble Shore’s accounts show it took a bank loan of almost €38m in the year, while it repaid a loan of €33.2m. Pebble Shore also received €15m in loans from a related party in 2024. The year before the acquisition the Hard Rock hotel’s then owner, Rockyvale Limited, had a €34m bank loan facility from AIB on its balance sheet. The Business Post, 5th December
Cork City Two new hotels are about to get off the ground in Cork City. The planned €18.5m hotel at No 71 South Mall, formerly home to National Irish Bank, will be a 58-bedroom boutique hotel called The Joshua. Co. Clare-registered financial advisory company Finbuild Ltd are his funding partners in the project, which will see a long-vacant former bank building returned to use in the city’s financial business district. Planning permission for the South Mall hotel was granted in 2019 to previous owners but has lapsed, so a new application is pending. Separately, the JMK Group, owned by the Kajani family and chaired by Pakistani-Irish businessman John Kajani, has served notice that it is commencing work on the aparthotel on South Terrace, for which planning permission was granted in 2022. The JMK Group project will see the conversion of three late-Georgian buildings, Nos 31, 32 and 33, into an aparthotel, which the group previously stated would operate under the Adagio brand. The group bought the buildings for approx. €1m about a decade ago. The planning grant includes permission for a five-floor over-ground floor and lower-ground-floor annex to the rear of the buildings, as well as an external landscaped courtyard. The Examiner, 5th December
Retail
Grafton Street, Dublin 2 Victoria’s Secret is to close its flagship store on Grafton Street and move to a new location in Dublin city centre. While the American lingerie brand has traded successfully from 28-29 Grafton Street since it opened there in December 2017, the building, which comprises some 20,000 sq. ft of retail space and storage, is now surplus to its requirements. The Irish Times understands that Victoria’s Secret has applied to the building’s landlord, Sretaw, to assign the remaining seven years of its lease to a new occupier. Sretaw acquired the Grafton Street building from Iput for €28m in 2023, and is understood to be in receipt of annual rent of €1.5m from its investment. The Irish Times, 5th December
RESIDENTIAL/DEVELOPMENT
Walkinstown, Dublin 12 The green light has been given to a large-scale 436 apartment development in Walkinstown after the withdrawal of a third-party appeal against the planning permission, planning documents reveal. The homes are set to be built in an industrial estate, with the owners of nearby commercial units fearing the development would lead to conflict between their operations and homeowners’ rights to quiet enjoyment. The planning permission was sought by Watfore Ltd, a development and property management subsidiary of Dairygold Co-Op, to demolish the existing site before building four apartment blocks ranging between six and 10 storeys in height. The development is set to be built in the Parkmore Industrial Estate on the Long Mile Road. In addition to the 436 apartments, the plans include a community library, cafe and commercial units. The Irish Times, 6th December
Kilbride, Co. Wicklow An Coimisiún Pleanála (“ACP”) has struck down an appeal by a subsidiary of housing developer Lioncor against the rejection by Wicklow County Council of planning permission for 666 homes in Kilbride. The proposed development was to be part of a 1,500 home master plan with an estimated price tag of €710m on the outskirts of Arklow. It was set to be made up of 578 semidetached and terraced houses and 88 apartments, with a creche and walking bridge across the Arklow marsh and the Avoca river. The rejected large-scale residential development application is the second phase of the master plan, with a further 750 homes planned for the third phase of the development. The council had cited concerns over the construction time frame of a bridge included in the plans, the number of homes representing overdevelopment of the area, the ecological impact of the project and that the development would lead to the population targets for the area being “materially exceeded”. The Irish Times, 6th December
Agricultural Land Values Ag land values grew by a robust 9.2% year on year in Q3 2025, bringing the weighted average value for all farmland to €13,045 per acre. Marginal grassland saw the strongest annual growth at 12.7%, while prime grassland grew by 8.9%. Average prices for arable land grew by 6.9% over the 12-month period. The Border region recorded the strongest annual growth in land values at 15.4%. The Mid-East continued to see the highest average land values at €16,438 per acre, while the lowest average values were in the West at €9,100 per acre. Key factors underpinning the strength of land values in the year to date include limited supply of land and strong demand reflecting strong growth in output prices and improved farmers income levels as well as lower borrowing costs. Sherry Fitzgerald Report, 4th December
Build Costs The cost of developing an apartment in Dublin has risen above €600,000 for the first time, new Department of Housing figures obtained by the Business Post reveal. The cost increase effectively wipes out half the savings from the recent Vat cut on apartments, the figures show. As the government published a major plan to eradicate infrastructure delays, a nationwide analysis of development costs has shown the price of building all types of homes in Dublin has risen by between 2%-3% in the year. Development costs for urban apartments have risen by more than €13,000 to €605,000, while the price of a suburban apartment rose by 2% to €559,000. The total cost of building a three-bed semi-detached house in Dublin increased by more than €14,000 to €465,000. The continued rising cost of apartments in particular will add strain to the government’s attempts to address the significant decline in construction of these units. Last year, the number of new apartments built fell 24.1% to 8,763. Industry forecasts have suggested apartment completions in 2025 could be down a further 25%. The Business Post, 6th December
Other
Greater Dublin Drainage Project Uisce Éireann has announced it has reached a legal agreement which means a major sewage treatment project, critical to the provision of housing in the capital in future, will proceed. The €1.3bn Greater Dublin Drainage Project was held up by a judicial review, but Uisce Éireann said construction contractor procurement will now commence in February 2026. In July, the project was given the green light by ACP. In September, a legal challenge was lodged against the project by Wild Irish Defence. Today Uisce Éireann announced: “The settlement was achieved following constructive engagement between all parties and avoids the need for a full court hearing. As part of the agreement Uisce Éireann committed to some additional measures, to further enhance public confidence in the environmental benefits of the project.” Uisce Éireann began a pre-application process in 2012 and an application was lodged in 2018. It was subject to an initial judicial review in 2020. Rte.ie, 5th December
Rosslare, Co. Wexford Iarnród Éireann, the port authority for Rosslare Europort, has confirmed it will seek planning permission for a major redevelopment of the Wexford port. The proposed Rosslare Offshore Renewable Energy Hub is described by the company as a “landmark” facility designed to support Ireland’s growing offshore wind industry. The €220m project is expected to create 2,000 long-term jobs in the region and support the country’s renewable energy transition. The government first signed the contract for multi-million euro infrastructure upgrade in May 2023. The plans, which will be submitted to ACP next week, outline what would be the state’s largest purpose-built port facility dedicated to offshore renewable energy. If planning approval and funding are secured, construction is scheduled to begin in early 2027, with delivery targeted for early 2029. The almost 200 acre development will feature two heavy-lift berths designed for offshore renewable energy components, storage, marshalling and assembly and a new 64-berth small boat harbour. The Business Post, 3rd December
Construction Sector Activity in the construction sector continued to decrease in November, for the seventh month in a row, according to the latest Purchasing Managers’ Index from AIB. The survey said new orders continued to fall, amid further signs of demand weakness in the construction industry. The headline seasonally adjusted Construction Total Activity Index moved further below the 50 no-change mark last month, dropping to 46.7 from 48.1 in October. AIB said anecdotal evidence pointed to slowing demand and a drop in new orders, which it said meant that volumes of new projects were insufficient to fully replace completed contracts. The Construction PMI recorded a fall in activity across all three monitored categories in November as commercial registering “a renewed and solid decline in activity.” Work on housing projects fell for the seventh consecutive month, but at the slowest pace since June. Civil engineering posted the sharpest decline, as the rate of contraction accelerated from October. The report said new orders decreased for the fourth consecutive month “as companies reported weak demand and project delays.” “Commercial construction fell back into contractionary territory in November, having seen a modest pace of expansion in October,”. Rte.ie, 9th December
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