LOVE THE WORLD of property but struggle to keep up with the news? Never fear. Each week, we bring you five of the week’s biggest stories, so you can get a bite-sized digest of the week’s big changes.
This week, The Square Tallaght gets new owners, residents of Donabate village get ready to fight for their village, and a new engineering hub is coming to Dublin.
Oaktree, an American private equity giant, is reported to have spent €230 million on the acquisition of The Square shopping centre. Oaktree has been snapping up property here since the recession, and purchased the shopping centre just after it received the go-ahead to expand.
The expansion to the centre is set to create 400 jobs, primarily in retail outlets. The Square is already home to over 160 retail units including a Tesco, Debenhams and Dunne Stores.
The Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown council is to take Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company to the High Court, it was reported this week. The dispute has arisen over a long-awaited urban beach, which was co-funded between the parties. Though it was given the go-ahead in 2015, work has still failed to begin on the beach.
It is understood that the council will take the company to court have the contract signed by the parties declared null and void, leaving the future of the project in doubt.
A plan to build more than 200 homes in Donabate has been stalled by several parties objecting to the project. The homes – proposed by McGarrell Reilly – would consist of 3, 4 and 5 bed homes as well as apartments in 3-storey tower blocks.
Opposed groups say that the development is “out of scale and out of character… compared with existing development in the vicinity”. The development has been appealed to An Bord Pleanála who have not yet made a decision.
As the housing crisis deepens, Minister of State Kevin Moran said this week that the State has 98 unoccupied properties under its ownership. Combined, the properties have cost almost €1 million to maintain.
The properties mentioned in the Dáil only include those managed by the Office of Public Works. The head of Co-operative Housing Ireland, Kieron Brennan, has called for a number of these sites to be used to deliver social housing.
Speaking to Morning Ireland this week, Patrick Collison, founder and head of Stripe, discussed the new engineering hub the company has planned for Dublin. Collison, along with his brother John, is one of the world’s youngest self-made billionaires, with a net worth of €1.02 billion.
However Collison also noted that Stripe’s expansion plans in Ireland are dependent on things like the housing crisis, “whether Dublin can maintain its hospitality to immigrants, and people coming from elsewhere in Europe”.
We’re breaking down the complicated world of property jargon, one buzzword at a time. This week, it’s Listed Building. This is a property which cannot be demolished or altered for a number of reasons: it is usually historically important. They can also be called ‘protected structures’.
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