New apartments in Old City to be auctioned

Two blocks of newly completed apartments in Dublin's Temple Bar area are to be sold by auction at the end of this month because of the exceptionally high level of interest in them. It will be the first time individual apartments in a new development have been offered for sale under the hammer.

The 17 apartments in the Wooden Building are the most important and original to have been brought to the market by Temple Bar Properties. They have the added attraction of tax breaks at a time when these concessions are fast disappearing from the property sector.

The huge number of inquiries logged suggests that there will be intense competition for each of the 13 apartments to be auctioned by agents Hooke & MacDonald in Dublin's Shelbourne Hotel on March 30th. Four additional units set aside for owner-occupiers will be sold by private treaty at a later stage.

Auction reserves are being disclosed in advance to give buyers an indication of the likely selling prices. Guideline prices will be £180,000 to £225,000 for 11 one-bedroom apartments, three of them with studies, and £315,000 to £380,000 for five two-bedroom homes. The one-bedroom units average 450 sq. ft with the two-bedroom units about 800 sq. ft.

The £650,000 reserve price for the two-bedroom duplex penthouse may well prove on the conservative side, given that it is probably the most spectacular unit of its kind in the city centre.

At a time when there is so much boring repetitiveness in the design of new apartment schemes in the city, TBP has provided a welcome relief over the past seven years with some of the most innovative schemes, designed mainly by groups of young architects.

TBP has gone a stage further with the Wooden Building, a nine-storey block which forms the centrepiece of the extensive apartment and retail scheme nearing completion in the Old City area on the west side of Parliament Street. Five architectural practices have been involved in the creation of the Old City, which will have 191 apartments in all, two landscaped courtyards, a new street and a range of shops.

The Wooden Building was originally planned by Shane de Blacam and Michael Kelly, of architects de Blacam and Meagher, as a tower building, but it lost three storeys in the planning process because of objections from An Taisce. It is still an immensely interesting American-style block distinguished by a varnished oak and brick exterior with iroko and galvanised steel canopies projecting out over each of the four sides.

The block has a shop at ground floor level and eight floors of apartments. A second block has four apartments and a crΦche at the rear overlooking a landscaped courtyard.

The Wooden Building has two apartments per floor, one of them a two-bed and the other a one-bed unit. The two-bedroom show apartment on the fourth floor has lots of architectural surprises, including flexible living space.

The apartment has a large square reception hall and a sliding door opening into a living-room dominated by a large bay window. A tiny balcony overlooks the central courtyard. Most enchanting is a series of three rooms, a kitchen, dining-room and living-room, which can form a single loft-style space.

This has been skilfully achieved by the use of an off-centre pivot door between the kitchen and the dining-room, and a sliding door opening into the living-room. A further door provides access to a balcony overlooking Upper Exchange Street. There is constant daylight streaming into all the rooms, not least the kitchen, which has stainless steel wall and floor units.

The bathroom does not have a window but it has attractive floor-to-ceiling glass mosaic wall tiling and matching floor tiles. By the time the show apartments open today, they will have been fitted in vibrant colours and materials by interior specialist Joanna Woodworth of Factotum.

Leading figures in Dublin's business and entertainment world are expected to pitch for the penthouse, easily the most stylish of its kind in the city. It has a floor area of 1,020 sq. ft on the seventh and eight floors as well as a 600 sq. ft walled roof garden with panoramic views over the entire city. The views are almost equally good from the inside, with floor-to-ceiling windows looking north, south and west.

There is a most elegant living-room, a separate dining-room and an ultra modern kitchen with stainless steel units. Once inside the entrance door, there is a double height hall with an American white oak panelled staircase rising to a library with 16 ft high ceilings. A curved glass wall throws daylight on the staircase and encourages visitors out on to the roof garden. The penthouse will make a unique venue for entertaining. Like all the other apartments it is serviced by a lift.