Avondale United to sell Carrigaline grounds for €2.5m
Football Been United Ground Has Carrigaline, Avondale Than Road Of Fernhill Avondale Cork, The 40 Years Co Club For Home More Park, In By
Avondale Park, the home ground of Avondale United Football Club in Carrigaline for more than 40 years, is up for sale for €2.5m.
The 4.62-acre (1.9ha) site, in an area with favourable zoning for housing, could accommodate up to 70 homes based on current guidelines governing density range in sustainable residential neighbourhoods.
As the Cork County Development Plan 2022-2028 has zoned the area under “Existing Residential/Mixed Residential”, the vendors are confident that planning permission for housing will be granted. Based on a density range of 15-25 units per acre, the site could expect to accommodate 60 to 70 homes.
Avondale Utd FC, whose home games have been played in Carrigaline since 1986, is planning to relocate to Carrigrohane “Straight” Road, to lands leased from Cork County Council on a 99-year lease. The club is “seeking to engage with a developer who can obtain planning permission for a residential development” at its Carrigaline grounds.
The decision to sell Avondale Park comes at a time when waiting lists for new homes in Carrigaline are well into triple-digit figures, according to local auctioneers. Among those expected to show interest in the Avondale lands are Astra Construction and Ruden Homes, both very active local players with multiple residential developments in Carrigaline, including current schemes at Janeville (950 units, Astra, Stephen McCarthy) and Mill Farm (Ruden, John Deane/John Ruane). Shrewsbury Park, a Ruden Homes legacy development, adjoins Avondale Park, which has 129m of frontage onto Fernhill Road at its eastern boundary.
The land is just east of Carrigaline town centre and 1km south of the N28 national primary route, which, by 2030, will be replaced by a motorway. Preparatory work on this key piece of infrastructure is ongoing and will, when completed, provide a strategically important road corridor to the Port of Cork’s new container terminal in Ringa-skiddy, (a major employment hub) as well as IDA lands in the area.
David McCarthy, of Sherry FitzGerald Commercial, who is handling the sale of Avondale Park, said its proximity to what will be the motorway “positively positions these lands for strategic development”.
Moreover, Carrigaline is now the largest town in Cork county, with a growing population, and the strong demand for new homes in the area represented “an ideal opportunity to create a bespoke residential development subject to obtaining planning permission”, Mr McCarthy said.
The decision by Avondale Utd FC to sell the Carrigaline grounds, which they bought in 1986, is in the hope of “optimising the value of the lands for the club”. Members who attended an extraordinary general meeting earlier this year were told the club wanted to “realise the full development potential of the site in what is currently a buoyant housing market”. Monies raised through the sale are due to fund the development of new facilities for its growing membership.
The club currently has 900 players, including 700 schoolboy/schoolgirl players under the age of 16, whose home games are played in Beaumont Park, in Beaumont, Cork City, where Avondale Utd has a 99-year lease. Senior players will continue to have home games in Carrigaline until the Carrigrohane Road pitch is ready. The land in question, which will be made available by the council at a peppercorn rent, is on the opposite side of the road to the Lee Fields, close to the Drive Thru Coffee station.
The Carrigaline pitch is within walking distance of Carrigaline town centre.
David McCarthy, Sherry FitzGerald Commercial Email david.mccarthy@sherryfitz.ie or phone 0214270099.