US private equity giant Oaktree and developer Johnny Ronan have agreed a €415 million refinancing of the former Irish Glass Bottle site with Deutsche Bank as the development of about 4,000 units progresses on the landmark Dublin plot.
Pembroke Beach, the company behind the joint venture, said that the German bank is replacing the existing construction financing consortium behind the multi-phased project. US investment group Blackstone was the previous lead debt provider.
Oaktree has a 83.3 per cent stake in Pembroke Beach, with 11.7 per cent held by Ronan Group Real Estate (RGE), and the remaining 5 per cent owned by a company linked to Lioncor, co-developer of the site. Lioncor is a joint venture between Oaktree and Dublin-based Alanis Capital.
“Glass Bottle stands as one of the most ambitious and impressive development projects ever undertaken in Dublin, and we are incredibly proud of the success the team has achieved to date,” said Marcus Ryan, chief executive of Lioncor.
“The addition of Deutsche Bank as a new financing partner alongside Oaktree and Ronan Group bolsters our long-term growth strategy as joint developers and represents a positive endorsement of both the strength of market opportunity for new capital projects in Dublin and our team’s proven ability to deliver at scale.”
The debt refinancing follows a period where Oaktree was known to have been looking to bring in a fresh equity partner on the largest residential development project in the capital. That search reportedly began in mid-2024.
Lioncor said that new investment “kick-starts an exciting new stage of development” following a series of topping out milestones across the first phase of residential development in 2024 and 2025.
In November 2025, Glass Bottle’s first residential building, Lime House, consisting of 212 homes achieved practical completion and welcomed its first tenants, it said.
Construction on the remaining phases of the development is continuing with the next 180 apartments set to be completed by the end of March, with another two buildings delivering a further 495 homes on track to be finalised by the end of September, it added.
Construction on the next residential phase – consisting of an additional 586 homes – will commence in the first half of the year.
Long a symbol of Celtic Tiger hubris, the largest vacant plot in the capital is expected to deliver up about 4,000 homes, 25 per cent of which are earmarked for social and affordable housing, as well as 1 million sq ft (92,903sq m) of commercial space.
The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) had receivers appointed to two separate parts of the 37-acre site between 2011 and 2012 as the respective owners ran into financial trouble.
A company called Becbay, backed by developer Bernard McNamara, property financier Derek Quinlan and State agency the Dublin docklands Development Authority, owned the 25-acre glass bottle land at that time. Becbay acquired the holding in 2006 for €412 million in an Anglo Irish Bank-backed deal. A company linked to boom-era developer Liam Carroll once held the remaining 12 acres.
Oaktree and RGRE agreed in late 2020 to buy an 80 per cent stake in 37-acre site for about €200 million from Nama. Nama sold its remaining stake in the site to Oaktree in 2023.