One of the finest hotels in Ireland's mid-west region, the seven-year-old Strand Hotel in Limerick, is
for sale on the international market. Tom Barrett of Savills Hotel & Leisure and Dermot Curtin of CBRE Hotels are guiding €17 million for the four-star hotel which made a profit of more than €1.5 million in the past year and shows signs of doing even better in the immediate future.
The 184 bedroom hotel is likely to have cost in excess of €40 million to develop and fit out just before the property market collapsed in 2007. It forms part of a larger, mature development – including upwards of 200 apartments – carried out by John Lally's Lalco Holdings on the extensive site of the former Jury's Hotel overlooking the river Shannon. The location could not have been better, a few minutes walk from the main shopping and business districts. It is also within easy walking distance of the 50,000 seater GAA grounds and even closer to the legendary Thomond Park, the home of Munster rugby.
The success of The Strand – experts put it in the same class as the Radisson in Galway and the Clarion in Cork – is largely attributed to its excellent facilities and its strong and innovative management.
All 184 air conditioned bedrooms are particularly well fitted out. There are several bars and restaurants, extensive conference and banqueting facilities and a modern leisure club that has 900 members.
The Strand has cornered a large proportion of the corporate business as well as much of the tourist sector partly because of its prime location and the fact that it is within a 30-minute drive of Shannon Airport via the new tunnel under the Shannon. The hotel's conference and banqueting room can cater for up to 600 people and there is also a choice of 13 meeting rooms, seven of them on the top floor of the hotel with stunning views over the Shannon estuary and Limerick city centre.
The health and leisure facilities include a gym, 20 metre swimming pool, hydrotherapy pool, sauna, jacuzzi, plunge pool, aerobics studio and spa. Another selling point is the availability of 200 car parking spaces for hotel guests at lower basement level.
The hotel sector generally in Ireland enjoyed much improved trading conditions in 2013 largely driven by an increase in visitor numbers and a resurgent Irish brand. Key indicators this year also show considerable growth with Limerick recording the highest rise in revenue – up 12 per cent – for the eight months up to August, 2014. A breakdown of the figures show that The Strand Hotel was one of Ireland’s busiest and most profitable hotels outside of Dublin city centre.
