Offers in excess of €80 million have been invited for a landmark 9-acre (3.6 hectare) site in Dublin’s north docklands zoned for the delivery of a major mixed-use scheme.
Assembled originally by a joint venture involving the Westmeath-based Bennett Group, the "Merchants Gate" site, as it was known previously, is the subject of a targeted sales process being handled by Savills Ireland.
While the €80 million being sought for the now-renamed “Brick Yards” site is significant, it represents a 47 per cent discount on the €150 million price the property commanded when the owners last offered it to the market in 2006.
Affordable housing
On that occasion, the site came with full planning permission for an 83,773sq m (901,725sq ft) mixed-use development with a 19-storey tower block rising to a height of 65m (213ft) as its centrepiece. The scheme was also to have included 721 apartments, a four-star hotel with 200 bedrooms, a 20-suite boutique hotel, 38,000sq m (409,000sq ft) of mainly offices, social and affordable housing, a gym, swimming pool, shops, a community care centre and creche.
Although the proposed disposal of Merchants Gate did not proceed in 2006, the combination of the site’s positive planning history and its location almost immediately opposite the entrance to the Dublin Port Tunnel and within close proximity to the 3Arena, Point Square and Eastlink Bridge is understood to have attracted interest from a number of parties this time round, notwithstanding the uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
