Will €6m Blackrock Road land end up with millionaire mansions or high density apartments?

City Hall previously supported the €10m conversion of the former office block Springville House 500 metres away to social housing with 31 units run by Tuath, while over 40 other units, mostly apartments, have been under Bord Pleanála appeal by a range of objectors at Nos 1 and 2 Ashton Place and Ashton Park, adjacent to Feltrim.

The historic house went to market with a €5m price tag — well surpassed — with agent Michel McKenna last year on behalf of the Society of African Missions (SMA) who had owned it since the 1950s and who have adjoining property, including a nursing home and St Joseph’s parish church.

Feltrim, dating to the 1840s and at the city end of the Blackrock Rd shows on the Price Register at €3.15m; its one-bed gate lodge shows at €350,000, and the balance of the land value appears to be €2.5m with a total sale at €6m confirmed by selling agent Michael McKenna who declined to confirm the private buyer’s identity.

However, he confirmed there had been exceptionally strong interest from niche developers, both Irish and UK-based. While interest in it as a €5m+ private home and long-term investment had been expected, it didn’t materialise as bidding.

The purchase is linked to a city businessman with a major dividend windfall from a company sale in the background, and who is currently finishing a small apartment project at a period home on the Blackrock Rd.

With property also in Wilton, the SMA had reluctantly decided to ‘right-size’ from their 3,200 sq ft period home and provincial house Feltrim, descried as “a little oasis,” by SMA Provincial Fr Malachy Flanagan who said proceeds would go the French-founded order’s missionary work (it works in 17 countries) and to support their retired members: The SMA’s nursing home alongside had 29 retired priests when Feltrim went for sale last April.

The preference of Feltrim’s new owner is understood to be a dozen or more detached houses, larger and far more expensive than the likes of modern builds at the likes of Lindville and Botanika where select houses can top €1m in value.

The Blackrock Road has had over 40 sales of houses costing €1m+ since 2010, according to the Price Register, and a c €2.7m sale of an upgraded period house on private ground there had been agreed in 2024, still in the wings, with substantial interest shown in it, indicative of the level of home-hunter wealth with eyes on the Blackrock Road.

Feltrim’s sale at €6m appears to be the largest development transaction in Cork of 2024, and is billed as such by a recent Sherry FitzGerald Commercial report issued late last year.

The previous year’s biggest sale in Cork was the €15m paid for 73 acres of development land at Maglin, Ballincollig, with builders Murnane & O’Shea involved in the purchase.

Murnane & O’Shea were also involved in the bidding last year on a key 24-acre land sale at Castletreasure, between sites owned by themselves and the 47-unit Bayly site on Douglas’s fringes, now in advanced delivery via Cairn Homes: it’s where home hunters queued overnight in cars last summer to get a chance to buy houses being released to the private market.

The Douglas land was publicly offered last year for a farmer owner with a c €7m price gide, after a private deal failed to complete.

Once publicly offered, again via estate agent Michael McKenna, it again saw interest from both Cairn Homes and Murnane & O’Shea and a deal was reached with contracts issued prior to Christmas at €10m, it’s understood, well over the guide and, driven by Bayly’s success, perhaps indicating that Cairn are indeed the intending purchasers.