Property

Costa del Docklands: boomtime apartment with bird’s-eye view for €575,000

Two-bedroom home has sunny balcony overlooking the capital’s fast growing district

The Gallery Quay apartment at Grand Canal basin, Dublin 2, has great views.

Orna Mulcahy's face
Orna Mulcahy
Fri Jul 7 2017 - 00:00

A sunny two-bedroom apartment with a ringside view of the Dublin south docks has come on the market through Sherry FitzGerald asking €575,000. The Gallery Quay scheme directly overlooks the Grand Canal basin and is a short walk to the Grand Canal Theatre, the Marker Hotel, and a host of IT companies, banks and legal and accountancy firms which have established offices in the docklands.

Apartment number 16 is located on the fourth floor corner of a southeast facing block that manages to catch the sun for most of the day and has a generous balcony with space for plants and people.

The 71sq m (764 sq ft) unit has proved a smart investment for its owners, a couple who bought it at the bottom of the market in 2012 for €299,000 – about 33 per cent less than the apartment would have originally sold for in 2003.

They bought it has a home, and refurbished it considerably, according to the selling agent John Paul Condron. “They both work in the area, in and they love the lifestyle of having cafes and foods shops on their doorstep but they’re ready to move to a new project.”

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The owners, he says, walk everywhere but the apartment comes with an underground car-parking space fitted with an electric-car charging point.

Floor-to-ceiling picture window

The open-plan livingroom-cum-diningroom and kitchen area has floor-to-ceiling windows

The layout is uncomplicated and airy with almost half the space given over to a livingroom-cum-diningroom and kitchen, with the balcony leading off the living section and a floor-to-ceiling picture window in the dining space. There’s additional light from a long sliver of window in the south- facing gable of the block.

Both bedrooms have access the balcony and the main bedroom has an ensuite shower room; there;’s also a full bathroom off the hallway.

The Gallery Quay scheme of nearly 300 apartments was a sellout when it was first launched from plans in the heated market of 2003. About 200 apartments were sold on day one of the launch despite there being nothing to see but a set a drawings. “A queue formed outside the marketing suite long before it opened for business yesterday morning at 7.30am” according to a report in The Irish Times. “By 6pm last night 200 of the apartments had been sold at an overall value of €90 million,” the report went on to say, revealing that 40 waterfront apartments were the first to sell at prices between €400,000 and €480,000. Six penthouse apartments also sold at prices between €825,000 and €1.25 million.

One of the attractions at the time was that buyers could secure a unit with a €20,000 deposit and would not have to pay the balance until the scheme was finished two years later, by which stage the apartments would have appreciated in value considerably.

The scheme has some popular retail elements on the ground floor including the Il Valentino bakery cafe, and Donnybrook Fair.