{"id":671267,"date":"2026-10-31T23:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T23:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/671267\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T23:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T23:12:11","slug":"this-cork-tower-will-be-the-tallest-apartment-block-in-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/671267\/","title":{"rendered":"This Cork tower will be the tallest apartment block in Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"

FOR A BRIEF period next year, the tallest residential building in the country will be in Cork.<\/p>\n

The slender 25-storey Railyard development will provide 217 flats across the block at Albert Quay, a short walk across the River Lee from South Mall and the city\u2019s busy Oliver Plunkett Street.<\/p>\n

It opens in a year\u2019s time and will be run by Cluid, the Approved Housing Body (AHB) and housing charity that has been providing social and public housing in partnership with local councils and builders for the past three decades.<\/p>\n

The landmark property will tower over the city and other housing developments elsewhere, before it loses its lofty spot to the Land Development Agency\u2019s 30-storey Parkgate Pointe<\/a> near Heuston Station in 2028.<\/p>\n

Some 99 of the flats are for social housing for Cork City Council tenants. On the lower floors, 22 of these social homes will be classed as age-friendly for older tenants, while the bulk of the apartments are Cost Rental accommodation.<\/p>\n

Cost Rental is a relatively new type of housing that aims to provide secure accommodation for people who earn too much to qualify for social housing \u2013 in this case net annual income of \u20ac59,000 or less \u2013 but who are shut out by rising house prices.<\/p>\n

Monthly rents in The Railyard are expected to range from \u20ac1,425 to \u20ac1,575 for one-bedroom apartments and be about \u20ac1,725 for two-beds \u2013 a significant chunk of change cheaper than the \u20ac1,900 tenants could expect to pay in Cork according to the Residential Tenancies Board.<\/p>\n

Cost Rental prices are set at 25% below the local market rate, although Cluid says The Railyard\u2019s rents are about 29% below due to Cork\u2019s higher cost of renting.<\/p>\n

\"download
\n Eibhlin O’Connor is Cluid’s chief commercial director Eoghan Dalton \/ The Journal<\/p>\n

Eoghan Dalton \/ The Journal \/ The Journal\n<\/p>\n

Eibhlin O\u2019Connor, Cluid\u2019s chief commercial director, told The Journal that the high-rise development is the biggest project the charity has taken on.<\/p>\n

However, she also doesn\u2019t believe a similar project is currently near as feasible because of the wider turmoil in the global economy over the past two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we were going now for tender it wouldn\u2019t be viable,\u201d O\u2019Connor said. While O\u2019Connor declined to say how much The Railyard has cost, she said it was \u201cgood value for money\u201d when works began two years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe certainly wouldn\u2019t be able to deliver it,\u201d she said, adding that inflation, uncertainty and interest rate hikes<\/a> all add to the problems facing construction.\n<\/p>\n

Apartment building<\/p>\n

There has been a lot of handwringing and debate over the role of apartments and how to build them as part of Ireland\u2019s response to the housing crisis, with the government trying to lessen regulations to soften complaints from developers.<\/p>\n

But complaints persist from private builders, and O\u2019Connor said this is all the more so when the wider plan is to try and take advantage of expensive prime city centre locations and building a higher density of homes on the one site.<\/p>\n

\u201cApartments are more expensive just because you\u2019re in a higher density and Railyard is on the river at an inner city site, so the land cost would have been more expensive,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"View-50-scaled\"
\n A depiction of how The Railyard will look from South Mall in Cork city\n<\/p>\n

One saving has been to avoid a costly underground car park, with the tradeoff naturally being that any residents with a car will need to find spaces elsewhere. Cluid hopes that The Railyard\u2019s 315 bike spaces and its central location will help.<\/p>\n

Because Cluid is contracted to oversee the building and tenants for the next 50 years at least, it has been \u201cspending that bit more upfront\u201d on higher-quality materials.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat limits the cost down the line and it also limits the disruption for the residents,\u201d O\u2019Connor said.<\/p>\n

No longer \u2018transitional housing\u2019<\/p>\n

Previously, O\u2019Connor said, there was a belief that Cost Rental was an \u201calmost transitional housing\u201d where people would use the discounted rents to save a deposit to buy a home.<\/p>\n

Cluid could then recycle the home for another tenant.<\/p>\n

That was the initial thought I think behind Cost Rental, but the culture is changing a little bit and people are more willing to rent longer-term, and we want to provide a home for life.<\/p>\n

There is another prong to this, as Cluid is also relying on the rents from Cost Rental tenants to \u201chelp us pay back our debts on on taking out the loan to facilitate the construction in the first place\u201d.<\/p>\n

This all means The Railyard is not quite a utopian project, but O\u2019Connor said it is part of a move towards making apartment living an attractive option.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as the amenities are there people will find it attractive,\u201d O\u2019Connor said.<\/p>\n

Applications will open to live in The Rail Yard in the next three months with the apartments to be occupied late next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FOR A BRIEF period next year, the tallest residential building in the country will be in Cork. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[284327,46,14641,213266,807,3662,61,60,43,13289],"class_list":["post-671267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cluid","tag-cork","tag-cork-city","tag-cost-rental","tag-housing","tag-housing-crisis","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-social-housing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}