€3.5m for 10-acre site

It is rare enough that a development site as big as 10 acres comes on the market in the Dublin suburbs.

That is one reason alone why Aislinn Ó’Buachalla of JLL is expecting considerable interest in the land bank at Jamestown Road, Finglas, Dublin 11, which has a price tag of €3.5 million.

The private treaty sale has been triggered by Shane McCarthy of KPMG following his appointment as receiver to a development company controlled by businessman Leo Mohan.

The site has the advantage of a good planning record.

In 2008 the owner secured permission for a large mixed-use development extending beyond 45,740sq m (492,341 sq ft) but it was not proceed due to the property crash and the banking crisis.

Although there have been indications that some building projects with planning permission before the crash might be allowed to proceed without going through the same lengthy planning procedures, it is by no means certain that the Jamestown Road development will proceed as planned.

For a start the 214 apartments envisaged for the site will probably be dropped and replaced by conventional starter homes in line with the long-established residential neighbourhoods on the opposite side of the road.

The original planning permission also cleared the way for 19,534sq m (210,262sq ft) of offices, 2,571sq m (27,674sq ft) of retail as well as a leisure centre extending to 2,220sq m (23,896sq ft), a 950sq m (10,226sq ft) medical centre, a crèche almost as big and 636 car parking spaces close to community offices.

The large site is about 8kmfrom the city centre.