Arklow site down 93% to €950,000

THE COLLAPSE in the value of development sites in provincial towns and villages continues to be more pronounced than in the main cities.

Agent HT Meagher O’Reilly is putting down another marker this week, quoting a mere €950,000 for a seven-acre town centre site in Arklow, Co Wicklow, which sold for an astonishing €13 million during the property bubble.

The drop in value is around 93 per cent.

Other agents have confirmed that a range of development sites taken over by either Nama or receivers in various provincial centres will start coming on the market when the new selling season opens in September.

In most cases values are likely to be down by considerably more than the 60 to 65 per cent discount predicted towards the end of 2011.

Even with prices on the floor, the more expensive sites may be hard to shift due to the banking crisis.

Bank of Scotland funded the purchase of the Arklow site by developer Graham Quinn whose planning permission does not run out till August, 2015.

In the meantime, receiver Grant Thornton is to oversee the sale of the site which is known as “The Alps” and includes several buildings on Arklow’s Main Street as well as land stretching along the frontage of the Avoca river.

The planning permission provides for a mixed-use development extending to 44,450sq m (478,455sq ft) including 35 shops, 12 office units, seven commercial buildings, eight workshops, 74 apartments, a medical centre, a 93-bedroom hotel including a bar, restaurant, banqueting and leisure facilities, a crèche and a 535-space multi-storey car park.

The site accommodates the former Ormonde Cinema, parish youth club, parish hall and former doctor’s surgery and residence. There are also two derelict houses on the site.

Finín O’Driscoll of HT Meagher O’Reilly said while Arklow Urban Council had acquired the former Dunnes Stores on Main Street for conversion into a library, “The Alps” was an infinitely better site with enormous potential to reinvigorate the core urban fabric of Arklow.

“The development of this site may not happen in the short term but its eventual development could play a major role in reinforcing the central business district of Arklow.

“A purchase now, at the bottom of the market, could be a shrewd and bold statement of confidence in the future of Arklow’s main street as the backbone of the town,” said Finín O’Driscoll.