New apartments in Pavilion development

Dún Laoghaire: from €795,000: Apartments in a new phase of the much-admired Pavilion scheme in Dún Laoghaire go on sale today with prices starting at €795,000 for large two-bedroom units.

Just 19 apartments will be built in the striking glass-clad building fronting onto Marine Road, between the seafront and Dún Laoghaire's main street.

Fifteen of these are being offered for sale today through Gunne New Homes who will be taking bookings at the 40 Foot Bar and Restaurant. Four penthouse apartments will only go on the market when the scheme is complete by mid 2006.

Work is well underway on the four and five-storey building, which will have a number of retail units on the ground floor. Hughes & Hughes bookshops has taken a prime space with talks also underway with a high end furniture retailer.

The apartments will be a good deal larger than average with two-bedroom units averaging 96sq m (1,039sq ft) and three-bedroom apartments at 105sq m (1,136sq ft). The three-bedroom units start at €895,000. While units on the upper floors will have lateral sea views, a couple of ground floor apartments will be sought-after because they come with their own large patios of up to 55sq m (592sq ft) each. All apartments will have sizeable balconies.

Car-parking is included in the price. However, buyers can take a discount of €35,000 if they do not take up a car-parking space.

The original Pavilion development proved a sound investment for early buyers who bought from plans at around €336,000 for two-bedroom units. That was in 1999 and the apartments have seen strong appreciation, with two-bedroom units now selling for €700,000 while a three-bedroom penthouse sold there last year for around €2 million.

There has been only one other seafront development in Dún Laoghaire since then, Harbour View, on a prime site opposite the Dart station. Most of the apartments sold out from plans last February.

Pavilion II's large scale apartments will appeal to owner-occupiers who want to be in the centre of things. The Dart is at the end of the Marine Road, the seafront cafés of Pavilion complex create a nice buzz when the weather is good, and the town has a good mix of shops and supermarkets, and a rapidly growing weekend market in the People's Park.