One of Dublin's leading apartment developers, Capel Developers, has sought planning permission for a large apartment development on the site of the National College of Ireland at Sandford Road, Ranelagh, Dublin 6. The college is to relocate to the 12-acre extension to the International Financial Services Centre, in the Dublin docklands.
Capel, which is currently handling three substantial apartment schemes in the city, paid £12.6 million at tender for the college, which stands on 3.8 acres. It plans to demolish the building and replace it with 224 apartments, all of them larger than the general run of units in the city. There will be 106 one-bedroom apartments with 500 sq ft; 96 two-bedroom units and 21 two and three-bedroom penthouses with between 800 and 1,500 sq ft. There will be 224 car-parking spaces at basement level.
The Sandford Road site is one of the best available development opportunities in the south inner city, according to one of Capel's directors, Eddie Keegan. He said it was within walking distance of a whole range of facilities. The apartments are likely to attract premium prices because of the superb location on a road where houses sell for anything between £400,000 and £1 million. While the price paid for the college seemed on the high side when it was bought a year ago, its value has greatly appreciated in the meantime, not only because of the overall increase in house prices but also because of the immense shortage of large apartments, particularly in the south inner city.
Hamilton Osborne King, which handled the sale of the college, says the apartments will generate a lower level of traffic than the college. The college is located along a private road shared by Gonzaga College and Sandford Church of Ireland national school.
Capel has been one of the most successful apartment developers in the city over the past four years. It is shortly to begin work on the second phase of 130 apartments at the former Linden Nursing Home in Blackrock. Virtually all the 127 apartments in the first stage have been sold by Hamilton Osborne King. Capel has also scored with its Riverpark apartment development at Connyngham Road, and it is due to launch another apartment scheme at Dunstaffnage, Stillorgan.
