Penthouse unit in Cork student complex with 'Instagramable views' on offer for €10k a year
Almost half of all the rooms in Cork city’s largest student apartment complex, where €10,000-a-year penthouse units boast “seriously Instagramable views” of the city, have been snapped up ahead of the new academic term.
The new 265-bed HATCH student property at Copley Court, which has undergone an extensive €25m upgrade, will be officially unveiled tomorrow evening in an area of the city which is poised to become a major education hub.
The complex on South Terrace is next to the site earmarked for UCC’s new 4,000-student Business School, and is close to the Cork College of Commerce, the CIT Cork School of Music and St John’s College.
Rooms have been available to book since April, with a single bed unit costing €229-a-week, rising to €249-a-week, or nearly €1,000-a-month, for the premium units.
A single bed ‘bronze’ penthouse in the complex’s Steelworks building was available online yesterday for €9,618 for the 42-week academic year. The most expensive ‘premium’ rooms in the Marsh’s Yard building are €10,458 for the academic year.
The developers said the new rooms are larger than average new-build student rooms with higher ceiling heights and more natural light, are en-suite, and the price includes all utilities, access to high-speed broadband and WiFi, and the use of the on-site gym and indoor and outdoor social spaces.
The former Copley Court complex, a 137-bed student accommodation building, an adjoining office block occupied by UCC’s School of Architecture, and an 80-space basement car park, were acquired in February 2018 by Dublin-based wealth managers, real estate and venture experts Elkstone and its clients, in association with student accommodation managers, HATCH Student Living. The upgrade took just over 16-months.
Elkstone has been involved in the delivery of over 2,000 student beds nationwide but this is their first direct investment of its kind in Cork city.
Ciarán McIntyre, Elkstone’s chief commercial officer and head of real estate, said they see further significant opportunities on Leeside and plan to open an office in the city later this year.
“Copley Court is large by national standards. It is a unique offering which allowed us to deliver something different than what would be done in other sites," he said.
The site allowed us to be more creative. We see Cork as a place that was and is ripe for investment and we are looking for opportunities.
An estimated 2,500 student apartment bed spaces are either under construction or planned in Cork, including 455-bed spaces under construction on a portion of the former Beamish and Crawford site, and site clearance work underway on a 348-bed development on the former O’Mahony Packaging Building on Melbourne Road near CIT.
London company Future Generations recently got the green light for what will be Cork's largest student apartment development - a 623-bed project on the former Coca-Cola site on the Carrigrohane Road.
