The National College of Ireland expects to secure between £10 million and £12 million for its college and grounds at Sandford Road, Ranelagh, Dublin 6, when they go for sale within the next two months. Most of Dublin's leading house-builders are likely to bid for the college, which stands on a site of 3.85 acres along a private road shared by Gonzaga College and Sandford Church of Ireland National School.

NCI, which was previously known as the National College of Industrial Relations, is to build a new college in a 12-acre extension to the International Financial Services Centre. The Dublin Docklands Development Authority is donating the half-acre site to the college in an area where land has been sold at £10 million an acre. Even if it gets £12 million for the Sandford Road complex, the college will still have to find at least double that amount to build and fit out a college of at least 120,000 sq ft.

The Sandford Road land is easily the best inner city site to have come on the market for at least three years, according to Pat Nolan of Hamilton Osborne King, who is expected to sell the property by tender. The college is likely to delay the completion of the sale for about 18 months to give it time to relocate to the docklands.

With the Government now advocating higher densities in built-up areas of the city, the selling agents say the planners may well allow at least 25 apartments and townhouses per acre. However, local residents are likely to monitor the scheme closely, given their objections to previous planning applications on the site. Nolan says the planners are still likely to approve of a fairly high density because the new homes will generate a lower level of car traffic than the college. Traffic would tend to be staggered when the new homes are built, rather than moving at the same time as it does when the college is in operation.

New homes on the site would attract premium prices because of the superb location on a road where houses sell for anything between £400,000 and £1 million.

Nolan says he expects an increased level of land sales in Dublin because of rezoning and higher values. In Limerick, Hamilton Osborne King is also selling a 29-acre housing site on the Golf Links Road, overlooking Castletroy Golf Club. It is also adjacent to Limerick University and Plassey Business Park. The planners are likely to allow at least 10 houses per acre on the site, which is expected to make between £5 million and £6 million.