Record price paid for Dublin 4 site

JACKSON Properties has paid a record price of £3.75 million for 2.5 acres of development land in Sandymount, Dublin 4. The developers, Mr Jack Cosgrave and Mr Brian Cullen, outbid other pleading house builders at the Lisney auction yesterday for Radcliffe Hall, a former women's hostel on St John's Road with 2.5 acres of grounds.

The sale price works out at £1.5 million per acre - the highest price ever paid for residential land in Dublin.

In December 1993, Sheelin McSharry paid £5.6 million for the 5.5 acre Johnston Mooney & O'Brien site in Ballsbridge.

Lisney's packed auction room held some of the best known house builders in Ireland yesterday. Jack Cosgrave bid against the Dublin hotelier Noel O'Callaghan and the Galway building group O'Malley Construction for the Victorian hostel, which is close to the junction with Park Avenue.

The hostel, owned by the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), comprised four Victorian terraced houses and a number of outbuildings including a large reconsecrated church. It was understood that the buildings will be demolished to make way for apartments.

Mr Cosgrave said Jackson Properties would build at least 70 apartments on the site, though, given the price he had paid at the auction, they could well seek permission to develop it further. There is no suitable planning permission on the land at present.