Cork site with planning for 118 apartments goes on sale for €4.75m

He is offering the Railway Gardens site on the city end of the south city link road as suitable for a social and affordable housing development; when planning was approved for owners Seamus and Evelyn Scally via Meitheal Architects it was pitched at the then-vibrant Build to Rent sector.

The 0.8 acre (0.97 gross) site is bounded by high rock boundary/cliff to Rockboro Road, by the Bord Gais HQ to the east and has the South Link to the west, by a filling station and just past OB Heating plumbing and bathroom supplies, which is owned by the Scallys.

Railway Gardens site is currently used for overflow parking, and got its name from the N27 South Link road which opened in the 1980s, on the path of the old Cork-Bandon rail line which had closed in 1961 after a century’s service.

Permission was secured by the Scallys in early December 2019 for Railway Gardens, with 118 units in two blocks of six and 17 storeys, with improved pedestrian access.

Notably, no car parking provision was included, a feature approved both by the Bord and by City Hall. The grant was subsequently amended to 112 apartments by the Bord in July 2022.

The site is 250 metres from the fully-occupied 17-storey Elsyian apartment scheme, which finished construction in 2008, whilst the tower proposed for Railway Gardens is nearly 10 metres lower at 58m high.

A second, even taller apartment tower of 24 storeys to house up to 217 apartments, pitched at the cost rental sector, is due on site for construction in Q1 2025, in a joint City Hall scheme with JCD Group on the old Sextant/Carey Tool Hire site which has had several changes of planning permission prior to commencement for residential use.

That significant JCD/City Hall development has been christened Railyard Apartments, with the old rail line from Albert Quay thus linking all three towers, Railyard, the completed Elysian in the middle, and Railway Gardens.

The future thrust, however,  of this third tower will be in the hands of any new owners with decision by Seamus and Evelyn Scally (who previously developed low-density apartment scheme called Kingbridge by Turners Cross over 20 years ago) to put it up for sale.

It had been expected to be offered for sale in any case in 2020 according to previous reports on these pages, but the non-viability of apartment schemes at the time led to it sitting idle, and with the five year SHD planning grant ticking down to March of 2025 (the five year period got an extension due to Covid-19.)

Viability has been put into apartment developments due to Government incentives such as Project Tosaigh, which has enabled starts be scheduled in place like the Sextant site, at BAM/Clarendon’s Horgans Quay as well as at O’Callaghan Properties sites (OCP has already completed a cost rental scheme at Lancaster Quay) and other south docks/Marina city locations.

ERA estate agent Sean McCarthy said the 2022 planning amendment for Railway Gardens provided “for a reduced 112 apartments suited to the social & affordable housing market. The amendments were considered minor in nature and there are no changes to the height or massing of the proposed building. The footprint and building envelope are unchanged as are the elevations.”

The South Link Road site, adjacent to the Old Blackrock Road overpass is say ERA “within convenient walking distance of both the central business district and the primary retail thoroughfares.2

The proposed development will have direct pedestrian access from the existing pedestrian bridge which links Hibernian Road with Rockboro Road.

The surrounding area comprises a mix of retail, residential and the amended planning permission provided for 57 one-bed apartments, 45 two-beds, five two-bed duplexes and five three-beds, as well as proposed communal spaces put at the time as concierge, laundry, gymnasium, TV lounge, meeting rooms, work space, mail room, office and over 200 bicycle spaces.

DETAILS: ERA Downey McCarthy 021-4905000