Historic Cork bar Chambers hits market with lease options from €1... plus rent

No drag: Agents looking to assign lease of former LGBTQ+ and drag-friendly bar Chambers seek nominal fee for place with seven years left to run on a €115k a year lease, plus rates etc

Thu, 09 Jan, 2025 - 06:00

Property Editor Tommy Barker reports

A CORK city bar 50 metres from a premises which sold last year for c€25m could be yours for as little as €1,000, €100 – or, even a single, solitary €1.

Put to market over the Christmas period is Chambers, a substantial licensed premises on Cork’s prime entertainment strip, Washington St or ‘the Wash.’

Chambers (Sinners) Bar building, Washington Street, Cork. Picture: Denis Minihane.

Chambers is in a corner setting in a building right next to Reardens, the legendary bar and night spot known now to generations of Corkonians, various revelers and UCC and MTU student, with a lively reputation dating to the 1990s.

The c 3,600 sq ft Chambers’ fortunes contrast sharply with Reardens, and Chambers closed over a year ago, and is now available by way of a lease assignment (see below).

Reardens sold in spring last year in a deal to Attestor Capital as part of a total c €30m transaction that included the Oliver Plunkett bar on Oliver Plunkett St, with the value of Reardens put as by far the larger, at c €25m. Attestor has been on an Irish investment splurge, with up to a reported €900m to invest and has bought major cash turning businesses in Cork, Dublin and Galway to date.

Reardens sold in 2023 as part of a c €30m+plus deal that also involved the Oliver Plunkett. Picture: Larry Cummins.

Trading figures seen by the Irish Examiner last year indicated Reardens had had an annual turnover of €18m in its then-latest figures, and made a profit of €4m.

As Chambers becomes available, it’s not known will it find future uses as a bar/licensed premises, as a more food-focused entity, possibly a mid-market eatery similar to a Nandos, or be pivoted to convenience/retail such as a Mace or a Tesco Express.

It’s on the market via agent Kevin O’Sullivan of Barry Auctioneers who is looking to assign the lease to a new operator.

It’s in a building called Courthouse Chambers owned for decades by Clarendon Properties who also own Cork assets such as Queens Old Castle and the Savoy Centre, both of which are in various stages of planned redevelopment.

Courthouse Chambers dates to the 1800s, with its taller mid section dating to the 1870s. It served originally as Dwyer’s drapery factory, which along with other associated building on and off Washington St employed thousands.

Dwyers, Washington Street, is on the other side of Courthouse Chambers. Pic Denis Minihane

That legacy is recalled in the licensed premises/gastropub called Dwyers on the ground floor left wing of Courthouse Chambers, with Chambers on the right hand side.

Chambers (also rebranded as Sinners) operated as a substantial disco bar and hugely popular night time drag show venue for the LGBTQI+ community in Cork and across Munster since 2006.

A decision to disassociate it as LGBTQ+ venue prompted a protest by drag artists in 2023.

Among its previous uses it hosted a pizza restaurant, Pi, with an enormous Heath Robinson-style pizza oven, in a joint business development set-up established by chef Seamus O’Connell of Ivory Tower gastro fame.

Estate agent Kevin O’Sullivan of Barry Auctioneers says they are “delighted to bring to the market this high profile ground floor licensed premises with all-year-round significant footfall, located in the centre of this established and active hospitality hub in Cork’s city centre.”

Directly facing Cork’s historic, 1830s’ built Georgian era City Courthouse, and now ringed by purpose-built student accommodation on Washington Street/Western Road and South Main Street by the long-awaited Events Centre site, the Chambers premises is still fully licensed, Mr O’Sullivan adds but “has great potential and is suitable for many more retail type uses: Fast food restaurant/outlet, convenience retail outlet etc, with independent access to the front, rear, and side.” The c 3,900 sq ft property with services is held on a ten-year lease from Jan 1 at an annual rent of €115,000, with rates at rates at €24,000 pa and annual service charges of €16,000, so core costs for any new users will be in the region of €155,000 or €3,000 a week.

There’s thus seven years left to run on the lease from this month, with a review due in 2027 “based on market rent at that time,” says the assigning agent.

There’s already interest in it from a variety of users, he adds.

Sold last year was suburban gastropub The Rendezvous, for c €2m, as well as Wetherspoons/Linen Weaver on Paul St, for c €2m, bought by Cork bar owner Tony Cross who also operates The Anglers at Carrigrohane and the suburban Turners Cross Tavern.

Unsold were Electric on the South Mall, offered at €2.5m in 2022 and likely to be redeveloped for aparemnts; the Wine Vault, seeking €1.4 million in autumn ’23 on Lancaster Quay just west of Washington St, and the former Cubin’s nightclub, behind Reardens, spanning 24,000 sq ft and also likely to be redeveloped.

DETAILS: Barry Auctioneers 021-4279677