Community activists ‘desperately disappointed’ as they fail to buy centre

A group of community activists in Trim have failed

to buy a building at the latest Allsop auction in Dublin yesterday. They had hoped the Maudlins Centre would become part of a heritage park.

The building was withdrawn from auction when there was no bid at the reserve price of €195,000. The Trim Heritage Project Co-operative had got 100 people to pledge €1,000 each in recent months towards buying the centre and had hoped to negotiate after the auction. Instead, an international investor secured it for an undisclosed sum.

'Disappointed'
Trim town councillor Michael Kenny, who was at the auction, said they were "desperately disappointed" because they believed that the property would not be sold without negotiating with local residents first.

The centre was owned by the community-based Trim Initiative for Development and Enterprise (TIDE) which went into voluntary liquidation in August 2012. It was being sold on behalf of Bank of Scotland.

Some €24 million was raised from the biggest property auction to date which involved 149 lots at the RDS, 123 of which were sold. The previous biggest auction was €16 million.

A golf course in Naas sold for €650,000, just above its lower reserve of €625,000. The Woodlands Golf Course on 51 hectares in Coill Dubh, Co Kildare, was opened as an 18-hole course in 2000.

River House on Charlotte's Quay in Limerick went for €3.25 million, which was well above its reserve. The four-storey building has the Office of Public Works as a tenant. Another building in Cruises Street, Limerick, went for €1.05 million. It has Specsavers as a tenant. A five-bedroom house in Clane, Co Kildare, which had a reserve of €250,000, went for €540,000.

A block of 11 apartments in Delgany, Co Wicklow, went for €950,000 and a complex of 12 thatched holiday cottages in Puckane, Co Tipperary, went for €260,000 as one lot.

Above the reserve
The Gallops public house in Julianstown, Co Meath, went for €230,000, well above its reserve of €120,000.

Some 28 properties failed to make their reserve or were withdrawn from auction. A nine- bedroom unfinished house in Connemara with a reserve of €130,000 did not attract a bid nor did a five-bedroom mid-terrace Georgian period house in Limerick with a reserve of €90,000. More than 1,000 people attended the auction and Allsop Space director and auctioneer Robert Hoban said it had been an “enormous success” and demand had been “very brisk and encouraging”.