State to spend over €21m on Rehab’s D4 site

The prospects for an upmarket housing and apartment development on the Rehab Group's Roslyn Park site in Sandymount, Dublin 4, now seems unlikely with confirmation that the Department of Education is involved in "exclusive talks" to take control of the campus.

Most of Dublin’s leading housebuilders had pitched for the 2.09 hectares (5.16 acres) site which is seen as one of the best remaining development opportunities in Dublin 4. Joint agents Lisney and Savills had guided in excess of €12 million for the property and, while most of the developers bid well in excess of that figure, the indications are that the Department of Education could end up paying over €21 million for the property which fronts on to Seafort Avenue, Newgrove Avenue and Beach Road.

Leading housebuilders Cairn Homes were one of the companies bidding for the site and, according to its chief executive and founder Michael Stanley, they had expected to get planning permission for a mixed development of between 100 and 120 houses and apartments even allowing for a substantial curtilage around a listed house on site.

A portion of the site has residential zoning while the main campus is zoned "to provide for institutional, educational, recreational, community, green infrastructure and other uses" under the Dublin City Council Development Plan 2010-2017. The selling agents contend that the acreage identified by this zoning could also be used for housing.

The likelihood that the Department of Education will now purchase Roslyn Park for an education facility will be welcomed by families owning high value houses on adjoining roads which are in constant demand.

A convent and girls secondary school was opened in Roslyn Park around 1950 by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary and closed in 1982. Rehab moved into the building the following year.

The centrepiece of Roslyn Park is a distinctive period house designed by James Gandon who also designed the Custom House and the Four Courts. The house was allowed to fall into poor condition in the 1980s but was then partially demolished and rebuilt in line with Gandon's original plans. The building is known by some as Gandon Villa and by others as Roslyn Park House and is fully listed by Dublin City Council.

The sale also includes 12 Seafort Avenue, a two-storey end of terrace building in need of modernisation with a retail extension to the front.

The sale of Rehab’s most valuable asset comes more than two years after the organisation was ridiculed over the pay of the former chief executive and several issues relating to how the disability charity and commercial group was being run. The group is expected to remain at Roslyn Park for at least four months after the sale has been completed.