A housing site in south Dublin which was sold for just over €31 million four years ago has been resold for more than €85 million - the highest price yet obtained for a residential development site in the city.
A Co Kildare housebuilding firm has paid over €7.5 million an acre for the 11.3 acre site in Stillorgan, Co Dublin. Mr Ray Grehan of the Maynooth-based company Glenkerrin Homes bid just over €85 million by tender for the site which fronts on to the Stillorgan dual carriageway. It has planning permission for 478 apartments, a nursing home, offices and shops.
The land at The Grange, near Galloping Green, was put up for sale by a consortium led by Mr Derek Quinlan, the financier who led the £750 million buyout of the Savoy Group of hotels in London by Irish investors earlier this year. Mr Quinlan's company, Quinlan Private, paid £25 million (€31.75 million) for the land four years ago.
Several of the country's leading housebuilders are believed to have tendered through selling agents CB Richard Ellis Gunne for the site.
Last month Mr Grehan and his brother Danny, a partner, sold over 100 houses priced between €500,000 and €690,000 at the launch of their first major Dublin scheme, Ballintyre at Ballinteer Avenue in Dublin 16, a site they bought just 12 months ago for €51 million.
Earlier this year they paid about €31 million for St Loman's Hospital in Palmerstown, Dublin, where they are about to lodge a planning application for 640 homes.