Ready to go site in Donabate with planning for 155 apartments for €8.5m

Site on Turvey Avenue is seeking in excess of € 8.5m and is primed for build to rent

The site near the train station in Donabate has planning permission for 155 apartments.
The site near the train station in Donabate has planning permission for 155 apartments.

Developers with an eye to the institutional investment market, as well as those looking to build and sell to individual buyers will be interested in a new “ready to go” site which has come to the market in the north Dublin coastal town of Donabate, seeking in excess of €8.5 million.

The site at Turvey Avenue extends to about 2.87 acres and has full planning permission for 155 apartments, as well as providing for a crèche facility, a commercial gym and a significant community amenity space. The scheme is intended for the build to rent (BTR)/private-rented sector (PRS), whereby the units would potentially be forward funded by an institutional investor and then let to the rental market. However, as it has been designed to build-to-sell apartment standards, it also offers the opportunity to sell the units on the open market to individual buyers.

Landscaped grounds

Planning permission was granted by An Bord Pleanála in August 2020 for 25 one-bed, 112 two-bed and 18 three-bed apartments on the site, in three blocks, with all units having private terraces/balconies. The three blocks are arranged around a central courtyard, with a pocket park and surrounding landscaped grounds. Parking is provided for at basement level.

The site on Turvey Avenue is located just 50m from Donabate train station, which offers daily and regular train services to and from Dublin city centre southbound as well as a northbound service towards Dundalk, Drogheda and Belfast. Donabate also offers easy access to the M1 motorway.

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Selling agent Knight Frank said the site “represents a significant PRS or private sale opportunity with the planning risk removed in a stunning costal location ideally primed to meet the recent shift in lifestyle requirements of tenants and homebuyers”. It expects to see strong interest from the market given that the scheme is “ready to go”.

Investment in the PRS sector across the capital remains strong. Recent figures from Hooke & MacDonald show that about €1.5 billion was spent across 19 major transactions in the first six months of this year, with PRS accounting for 55 per cent of all investment during the period, up from 40 per cent in 2020.

Fiona Reddan

Fiona Reddan

Fiona Reddan is a writer specialising in personal finance and is the Home & Design Editor of The Irish Times