€50m for apartment site in Leopardstown

A ready-to-go site for 450 apartments at Central Park in Stillorgan, Co Dublin, is expected to be offered for sale in the coming weeks. It is likely to make over €50 million. Jack Fagan reports

The land is owned by a consortium headed by developers Treasury Holdings, Quinlan Private, now a major player in the UK and European investment markets, and David Arnold, a Dublin property developer.

The decision to sell the apartment site is not entirely unexpected because the principal developer in the consortium, Treasury Holdings, is already heavily involved in Spencer Dock, the largest and most ambitious urban development in the State's history with an expected capital value of at least €2 billion. By the time it is completed, there will be more than 3,000 apartments, about 278,709sq m (3 million sq ft) of offices and a range of shopping and leisure facilities.

The Leopardstown site is located behind the Vodafone headquarters in Central Park and covers an area of about six acres. The 450 apartments are to be located in three 13-storey blocks designed by architects Henry J Lyons and will include a mixture of one, two and three-bedroom units. Up to 20 per cent of the overall scheme will be reserved for social and affordable housing. One of the attractions of the site is that it is also close to the newly opened Bewleys Hotel, just inside the entrance to the business park.

The recent opening of the Luas line has been a major boost to apartment sales in the Leopardstown area. Two weeks ago Sherry Fitz-Gerald New Homes sold more than 300 apartments from plans in Beacon South Quarter in Sandyford Business Park, a short distance from Central Park. Most of the homes were two-bedroom units which made between €350,000 and €465,000. The success of the marketing campaign is thought to have persuaded the Central Park consortium to offload its site while the new homes market remains buoyant.

Quinlan Private was also heavily involved in the sale last November of another high profile apartment site at The Grange along the Stillorgan dual-carriageway. A separate consortium assembled by Quinlan originally bought the 11.3-acre site in 2000 for €31.75 million.

After securing planning permission for 478 apartments, a nursing home, offices and shops, the consortium sold on the land for €86 million - easily the highest price obtained for a residential site in the suburbs. The Stillorgan site is less than a mile along Brewery Road from Central Park where the other apartment site is located.

Central Park itself has been a considerable success against all the odds given that it was launched and marketed just as the office market suffered a downturn. The letting in 2000 of 24,432sq m (262,984sq ft) of space to Vodafone still stands as the largest ever deal of its kind in Dublin. They have since been joined by a range of other tenants including First Active, Merril Lynch, Tullow Oil, Esso and Leaseplan Fleet Management.