Developer Glenveagh lodges fresh plan for apartments on former Marquee site
Site preparation works continue at the former Ford Distribution and Live at the Marquee site in the Cork Docklands. Picture: Larry Cummins
The developers of a prime docklands site in Cork City’s Marina Quarter have lodged a new planning application seeking permission to build 176 apartments on the former Live at the Marquee site.
The application, by Glenveagh Properties-backed Marina Quarter Ltd, proposes two apartment blocks — ranging in height from seven to 10 storeys — at what was once Ford’s distribution site, bordered by Centre Park Rd, Monahan Rd, and the Marquee link road.
The fresh planning application follows on from the 10-year permission granted to Glenveagh Properties in 2021 to build more than 1,000 apartments across 12 blocks, some up to 14 storeys high, on the south docks site.
Asked why they had now lodged a new application, a spokesperson for the developers said: “No comment”.
The latest proposal is for a mix of one-bed, two-bed, and three-bed units, as well as a creche, a gym, and a retail/café unit. Cycle lanes, footpaths, landscaping, and amenity and open spaces are also planned.
Site clearance and decontamination work has been ongoing on the 5ha parcel of land throughout 2024.
Earlier this year, Glenveagh chief executive Stephen Garvey indicated that they hoped to be ready for construction “sometime into the third quarter”.
He also said they envisaged partnering with a State agency on the development, and that it would be “a mixture of affordable purchase, cost rental, and an element of social units”.
The Land Development Agency, a State-sponsored body with a criteria-based remit to partner with some developers under Project Tosaigh, has not yet confirmed if it will back the Marina project.
The land on which the development is set to take place was bought in 2018 by Glenveagh Properties for a sum understood to be in the region of €15m — almost double the asking price of €8.5m.
Last week, a separate, nearby, major south docks residential project was dealt a severe blow when An Bord Pleanála refused Goulding fertiliser plant permission to develop port facilities near Cobh in a move that would have seen them relocate from their base on Centre Park Rd.
The board’s refusal has put an indefinite hold on plans by O’Callaghan Properties to build 1,325 residential units on the Goulding’s site.
The plans of both Glenveagh Properties and O’Callaghan Properties are seen as central to the regeneration of Cork City’s docklands where large scale residential development has government backing.
O’Callaghan Properties said the refusal to allow Goulding’s to develop port facilities in Belvelly effectively sterilised a significant portion of available development land in the docklands.
