A large site fronting on to the Stillorgan Road in south Dublin that has permission for a massive residential and commercial scheme will probably make over €100 million. Jack Fagan reports.
A ready-to-go site for up to 628 apartments at Stillorgan Road in south county Dublin is expected to set a record price for residential land when it goes to tender on November 17th.
Pat Gunne and Ronan Webster of CB Richard Ellis Gunne are quoting a guide of over €85 million for the 11.3 acres fronting on to the Stillorgan dual-carriageway but, given the high value location and the scarcity of significant development opportunities in south Dublin, it seems inevitable that the site will make well in excess of €100 million.
The land at The Grange, near Galloping Green, is being sold by an investment consortium led by Quinlan Private, which is now a major player in the UK and European investment markets.
The high profile site was bought exactly four years ago for around £25 million (€31.75 million) but with no less than five residents groups objecting to the proposed scheme, it took two applications to Dún Laoghaire Rathdown planners and two appeals to An Bord Pleanála to get the all clear. The final permission, granted by the board only two weeks ago, provides for 478 apartments, an 86-bedroom nursing home, a 4,154 sq m (44,610 sq ft) office block, a crèche and a retail unit of 226 sq m (2,433 sq ft). The gross floor area of 50,000 sq m (538,200 sq ft) will include 678 underground car-parking spaces.
Most developers pitching for the site will obviously look at the potential to seek a change of use of both the nursing home and the office block to residential buildings. This would open the way for an additional 150 apartments.
Of the 478 apartments already approved, 270 are two-bedroom units with an average floor area of 76 sq m (818 sq ft). There will be 153 one-bedroom apartments averaging 50 sq m and 79 three-bedroom homes with 93 sq m (1,001 sq ft). Apartments on the upper floors will obviously attract premium prices because they will have views over Dublin Bay on one side and the Dublin mountains on the other. The entrance to the former ESSO headquarters site is off Brewery Road.
The overall master plan has been refined on several occasions over the past four years and the final blueprint by lead architects O'Mahony Pike is acknowledged as an imaginative and practical scheme that will have strong appeal in the selling market. Much of the mature timber is being retained on the site which backs on to a 4.5-acre public park and tennis arena.
Most of Dublin's leading housebuilders - as well as the major construction companies which moved into the residential market in recent years - are expected to tender for the Stillorgan Road site because of its prime location beside the high value homes of Stillorgan, Foxrock and Blackrock.
Many of the apartments are likely to be bought by "empty nesters" - couples whose children have grown up and moved out - and investors with an eye on the 15,000 workers in Sandyford Business Park, Central Park and Cherrywood Science and Technology Park.
Apart from the Quality Bus Corridor on the Stillorgan Road, a strong selling point for the site will be its close proximity to the Sandyford Luas terminus, a mere 500 metres away. This will take commuters directly to the new Dundrum Town Centre within 10 minutes or all the way into the city centre in little more than 20 minutes.
Experts accept that the apartments to be developed on The Grange site will fetch top prices, even more than the €500,000 secured by Gannon Homes for two-bedroom apartments beside the Dundrum centre. CB Richard Ellis Gunne contend that the demand for apartments in The Grange will far exceed what will be available.
The agency says it is generally accepted that house prices in Dublin will on average experience high single digit growth in the period up to 2008 while homes in quality locations and close to amenities and public transport will undoubtedly experience the highest levels of capital appreciation. In particular, homes such as those planned for the Stillorgan Road would - because of their close proximity to the LUAS - experience a significant uplift as was the case when the DART was introduced in the 1980s.
