International institutional investor acquires Cork city centre's Half Moon Street development
An international institutional investor and property developer with billions of euros in assets globally has acquired Cork city centre's Half Moon Street development, home to 700 Apple employees, for about 10% over its €34 million price guide.
The completed investment deal, set for imminent confirmation, saw the very active US-based fund and developer with significant, high-profile interests already in Cork and Dublin outbid other international and Irish parties, including pension funds to secure the Half Moon Street property, occupied by Apple, Boots, Matthews, a hair salon and Henry J Lyons Architects.
The Leeside city centre investment property, next to the Crawford Art Gallery and Paul Street, was put for sale in April via Savills and CBRE with a €34m price guide.
It was being sold for its developers O'Callaghan Properties who completed it alongside their Opera Lane retail scheme in the mid-2000s.
It has a rent roll of €2.6 million, and spans 120,000 sq ft of retail and offices, with the latter let to Apple Europe. The site had previously been occupied by Matthews Corner, and a garage and newsprint store for the Examiner group.
O'Callaghan Properties (OCP) said the Half Moon Street sale was part of the evolution of its business which is now focused primarily on office and residential development in the Cork area in the short to medium term.
“Half Moon St is a mature asset, and we are moving on from it to concentrate on other opportunities.” they said.
OCP is currently developing Cork city's largest office complex, the 350,000 sq ft Navigation Square scheme, with the first completed block anchored by exchange markets company Clearstream DB, and due to be officially opened next week.
The 1969-founded company is also building residential units around Cork, and in July confirmed that it had entered into a conditional agreement with Origin Enterprises plc to buy 31 acres of Cork docklands just downriver of Navigation Square, for €47.5 million.
That Origin site “is the biggest development site ever to have come on stream in Cork city centre.
The scale and mix of the potential development is predicted to have a transformational effect on the city and for docklands,” said an OCP spokesperson.
They said it could take three to four million square feet of mixed commercial, residential and recreational development and “introduce a whole new dynamic to Cork, encourage city centre living, accelerate docklands development and increase inward investment to a hitherto unrealised level.”
