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A MAJOR UK student-accommodation company that plans to spend hundreds of millions of euro developing new facilities in Ireland will also sign up to operate thousands more beds.
Ziggurat announced last month that it plans to to build up to 4,000 new student units in Dublin, Cork and Galway as part of a €400 million investment plan. The company is the student-facing brand of Atelier Property Asset Management.
Matthew McAdden, who heads up Atelier, told Fora that Ziggurat is also looking to operate and manage an additional 4,000 student accommodation units in Ireland that would be built by other firms.
The company recently lent its support to a developer applying for a 308-bed facility in south inner-city Dublin. Ziggurat already operates two properties in Ireland, Copley Court and Leeside in Cork, which have a combined capacity of about 300 beds.
“At the moment we are keen to expand in Ireland and as well as the 4,000 units (we are developing), we would also like another 4,000 beds that we would be managing for other people,” McAdden said.
Major investment
The company has already announced plans to build several of its own developments, including a 380-bed facility in Dublin’s north inner city, a 420-bed centre adjacent to the DIT Grangegorman campus and a 200-bed facility on Cork’s Western Road near UCC.
The company was set up in Edinburgh in 2009 and opened up an Irish arm in 2013. It turned the former Montrose Hotel opposite University College Dublin into a 192-bed facility at a cost of about €22.5 million and is now looking to sell the complex.
The company charges students using its Montrose facility between €220 and €250 per week.
McAdden said that the company would like to secure more managing contracts in tandem with its development strategy.
One of these is likely to be the proposed facility in Dublin 8, which development firm Greenharts Properties has applied to build at Brickfield Lane and Brown Street South.
Under the plans submitted by Greenharts, former industrial buildings located at the site will be demolished and a mixed-use development including accommodation, a café and “science and technology incubators” will replace them.
If built, the complex will include 308 beds within 41 house units as well as extra student accommodation facilities such as a gym, communal areas and a laundry room spread over five and six storeys. The proposed science-and-technology hub would include 26 units.
Lack of supply
In a letter sent to Dublin City Council, Atelier Property said that Ziggurat has “reviewed the proposed mix and layout of the student accommodation and science units development and are working with Greenhart Properties to develop, operate and manage this development based on a long-term lease”.
“There is a likelihood that we could manage the building and operate it,” McAdden said, adding that the firm is also likely to manage properties in Galway and Cork.
“We see as much opportunity in Galway or Cork as we do in Dublin,” he said.
Ziggurat previously said that it expects to bring about 800 student rooms on stream in Dublin during 2019.
Students who are starting their studies in September are expected to find it very difficult to find accommodation as demand outstrips supply.
A report commissioned by the Higher Education Authority found there were 31,296 available student bed spaces in 2014, while the demand was put at 57,000 spots.
Several other developers have looked to capitalise on the supply shortage such as UK developer Threesixty, which is behind a €40 million student accommodation project underway in Dublin’s Liberties.
Written by Paul O’Donoghue and posted on Fora.ie
I wonder if someone did take him out 30 years ago, would Zimbabwe be the basket case he turned it into, or would some other “leader”, equally malingnant have just taken his place.
It’s tempting to write Africa off, but these things are not inevitable. The neighbours in Botswana were a landlocked, diamond rich former colony. Not an obvious candidate for success. And yet they were, partly because of Seretse Khama’s leadership, but also because people kept voting for him.
Unfortunately, for every relative success story there are 50 failed states. Nation building is hard and requires guts, enterprise, selflessness and vision. Mugabe wasn’t even asked to nation build. He was handed a fully functioning, very rich and successful country and managed to level it in less than a generation. That takes mean spiritness, stupidity, and the most crass selfishness and myopic vision, which, unfortunately, seems to be the calibre of most African leaders. Take and destroy is what they do and in the meantime, the west continues to do what the west does best. Assuage our feelings of western guilt by feeding, clothing and vaccinating the Africans left behind by their very own “leaders”.
We can write much of Africa off if the Chinese economy falters, And also, we can take Australia with it.
Problem with africa is its full of africans
“Unfortunate event”
In who’s eyes ????
Funny that at Mandela’s memorial when the camera would go to different world leaders the crowd would cheer or boo depending on who it was on. Mugabe got a massive cheer and Bush Jnr got a massive boo. Ya no your screwed when Mugabe gets a bigger cheer than ya!
It was an ANC crowd at the funeral & Mugabe was a big supporter if the ANC during apartheid times so I’d be sure that’s why he was cheered rather than for his recent policies.
That says a lot more about the crowd than it does about Bush Jr.
Whatever you can accuse Bush Jr. of, laying waste to his country, starving his people, killing the productive farmers and having an ugly greedy, mean wife isnt among them. An ANC crowd can turn into a vicious mob at the turn of a hair. Being rational abd discerning is not their thing.
Hurricane Katrina anyone? ;)
Sadly, probably the latter.
Problem with Africa is the tribal government system, and the mentality of it’s people.
@coom
Same could be said for a lot of countries..including ours!
Christina who wrote that paper? Dept of the Taoiseach?
While it is true that Robert Mugabe has a few character flaws, it cannot be denied that he is an active leader who stands up for his people. Much better than the shower we have running this country, he is. You can bet Robert Mugabe would have burned the bondholders and sent the IMF home with a flea in their ear.
Pity he didn’t have a fatal “accident” here.
Proably after totruring them first…Thing is we can elect another incompetant shower to govern us.Mugabe is there forever like a big black blood sucking tick on Zimbabwae.But then thats what happens if you let Marxist gun waving loons loose on a perfectly functioning and producing ,albeit not without is fault state.Turn it into a dictatorship that makes the previous oppression by whomever look like paradise.
have your say