Hickey has bigger plans at Citywest

SO what do you do in a property crash when you have planning permission for nearly 150 houses in Citywest – at Kingswood on the Naas Road?

In the case of Davy Hickey Properties, a joint venture between Brendan Hickey and clients of Davy Stockbrokers, the solution is to just get bigger.

They’ve applied to increase the size of each of 36 of the proposed units by one bedroom, including turning 16 two-bed houses into three-beds. The proposed development also includes plans for a crèche, two shops, two offices and 26 office units.

Brendan Hickey has managed to keep a remarkably low profile during the downturn, partially because the company is unlimited so does not have to file publicly available accounts, but he is no doubt looking forward to the opening of the Luas extension to Citywest on July 2. Davy Hickey, Pat Doherty’s Harcourt Developments and Jim Mansfield’s HSS contributed 55 per cent of the total Luas extension cost of €150 million.

Times have changed since then obviously with Mansfield’s HSS put into receivership last year by Bank of Scotland (Ireland) while Harcourt Developments lost €24.3 million in 2009 and a revaluation dropped the value of its assets by a further €6.2 million.

The extension will add two million passengers a year to the light rail network: Hickey will be hoping that some will choose to buy homes in the planned scheme and that the ease of access will also persuade more companies to open offices at Citywest, where existing tenants include blue chip companies like Pfizer, SAP and Unilever.