LDA committed to almost €500m housing investment in Cork

THE Land Development Agency (LDA) has committed up to half a billion euros to housing delivery in Cork, including c €136m at Horgan’s Quay, where a topping out ceremony is due to take place this weekend.

Agency chief John Coleman confirmed to the Irish Examiner that the “ballpark for Cork to date” is “almost half a billion euros of committed or near-committed investment”.

John Coleman, chief executive, The Land Development Agency. Picture: Mike Shaughnessy

Among their signature Cork projects currently under construction are 

The delivery of 302 apartments on Horgan’s Quay in partnership with Clarendon Properties, the first large-scale residential development in the city since the Elysian was built in 2008;
The construction of 266 homes at the former St Kevin’s Hospital site in Shanakiel;
The delivery of 337 apartments at the former Live at the Marquee site on the Marina, as part of a €150m deal with developer Glenveagh Properties Plc.

In addition, the agency is progressing plans for 348 homes on a 2.61ha former ESB site in Wilton. Hot on the heels of gaining planning approval for development of the greenfield site this week, it set about tendering for the project. Contractors have until November 19 to respond to a pre-qualification questionnaire, after which a shortlist of suitable bidders will be drawn up.

A Computer generated image of what Wilton could look like

“We anticipate good contractor interest in it and we will be on site next year,” said Mr Coleman.

“We’ve already done the detailed design, so contractors can give us a firm bid at this stage. We are hoping by doing that work up front, that it reduces the need for time extensions. We are saying Q4 at the moment, but we are going to try and beat that and pull it back to late summer.”

Mr Coleman also confirmed that a planning application to build 147 apartments at Anglesea Terrace — currently used as a depot and car park by Cork City Council staff — is imminent. The development will include one 16-storey block, just slightly lower than the nearby 17-storey Elysian tower.

“There’s an application going in this month for Anglesea Terrace, which is our first partnership with Cork City Council and so we are very happy about that one.

“It’s going to be a tall building as well — we top out at 16 storeys — but it will be sympathetic to the properties around it, so it starts low, at four storeys, near a protected structure [St Joachim and Anne’s, a 19th century redbrick] and the tallest block is closer to the Elysian,” the LDA chief said.

A CGI of what Anglesea Tce might look like

It was a good time to go to tender, he said, as the slowdown in office block and data centre building projects meant there was good capacity in the contractor market.

“So that capacity, coupled with the efficient design we have for Anglesea Terrace, will hopefully make it good value. By keeping the costs lower, it lowers the rents, so it’s in everyone’s interest.”

The Anglesea Terrace site will be developed by the LDA with Cork City Council

Mr Coleman travels to Cork this weekend for the milestone topping out ceremony at Horgan’s Quay which takes place on Friday.

Apartment blocks at Horgans Quay, near Kent Station, where the original Station Master’s House will form a centrepiece Picture: Larry Cummins

 He said it was important to celebrate the progress of a project that has had “a catalytic effect” on development of the docklands.

“I think what you are seeing on the docks in Cork is the catalytic effect. Three years ago when we were hosting stakeholder engagement meetings, it was very hard to see a way forward. We were talking a lot about our plans and where we were going, but it was very difficult to see a way of unlocking these. But fast forward three years and the catalytic effect of what everyone is doing — developers, ourselves, and the local authority — is huge.

And that’s a wrap: View of close to completion Horgan’s Quay apartments from the South Docks. Picture: Larry Cummins

“So taking the first step at Horgan’s Quay was the big one that catalysed activity in other areas like the Glenveagh [Marina Depot] site, and like other things that we are bringing through. Communicating this and giving confidence to the public is very important, so really that’s the purpose of marking the progress at Horgan’s Quay.”

While he was reluctant to put an exact figure on the Horgan’s Quay development “because we have a number of other developments we are trying to negotiate at the moment with developers and it would just signal our pricing too much”, he did say it was “one of our better value projects”.

“It’s certainly in line with a lot of other stuff that we have done — €400,000 to €450,000 per unit — that would be a ballpark of the overall deal size,” he said, which, based on 302 units, puts it at somewhere between €120m-€136m.

In terms of the type of tenure at Horgan’s Quay, Mr Coleman said the intention was for “the vast majority to be operated at cost rental” — which means the new apartments should be offered at around 25% below market levels.

“We are determining the social allocation at the moment, but we are focusing on cost rental because we think the need right now is around affordable apartments,” he said.

The project is due for practical completion in September 2026 and Mr Coleman said they’d be “making it available to residents after that”.

He said they will probably start “running the lottery” for apartments prior to practical completion “so we can minimise the amount of delay time for people getting in”.

“But there should be people in Horgan’s Quay before the end of next year.”

The agency was hopeful of also having people living on the former St Kevin’s site by the end of next year, he said. While the first phase — townhouses, apartments, and duplexes — should be completed by mid summer 2026, phase two, the restoration and conversion of the fire-damaged redbrick hospital building into apartments was “going to be challenging”, Mr Coleman said. The LDA had previously predicted the first homes would come on stream at St Kevin’s in 2024.

Members of the LDA on a site visit at St Kevin’s Hospital in September 2024

Other sites in the city in the LDA’s crosshairs include CIE land, adjoining Kent Station, on the North Docks.

“We are in discussion with CIE about that at the moment – that could yield up to 500 homes,” he said.

Asked if they were in discussion with O’Callaghan Properties about developing Kennedy Quay, on the South Docks, Mr Coleman said: “Due to commercial sensitivity, I can’t say much about it at the moment, other than to say that we are very interested in working with any developers who have opportunities in the Cork City area.”

The LDA is also “going through the legals” in relation to IDA-owned lands in Kilbarry, with potential to yield up to 2,500 homes.

“The northern part of that site is transferring to us, so we are just going through the legals on that at the moment, and there’s a framework plan that has been developed by the local authority to determine whether additional lands up there would be suitable for residential development — that’s the southern part.

“So we are clear that the northern part is suitable, the southern part we are just trying to work out at the moment, so it could all end up coming over to us,” he said.

Work is also underway to transfer a former ESB site in the marina to the LDA, as well as nearby Bord na Móna-owned lands, which, between them, could deliver 900 homes. Mr Coleman said the Bord na Móna site would be transferred by the end of the year, but that the ESB site which is “a bigger opportunity for us” will take longer due to complex decontamination processes.

Mr Coleman said the LDA is very focused on owning land going forward.

“Land is a big thing for us and the reason for that is we want to become much more in control of the output that we have by owning the land.

“We will continue to partner with developers on an ongoing basis, like Glenveagh and Clarendon, but we want to control our own output as much as possible over the medium to longer term.

“Direct development like the stuff that we are doing at St Kevin’s and Wilton and Anglesea Terrace will eclipse in size the amount of stuff we are doing with developers at the moment, which is the largest output that we have.”

Mr Coleman said while state land is very important to the agency, “there is not enough to fulfil the ambition we have in terms of scale so we are acquisitive.

“We don’t have anything at an advanced stage of discussion with landowners in Cork at the moment, but we are very open to acquisitions in the Cork area.

“It’s just as big a priority for us as Dublin. In fact, we think there might be more opportunity in the Cork area for larger scale sites. So we are very interested in acquiring sites, but nothing that I could hand on heart tell you is well advanced at this point in time.”