UrbanRedevelopment: A coal yard on a quarter of an acre near Baggot Street could make a record €8.5 million for a residential infill site. Jack Fagan reports.

Dublin city's second last coal yard has closed following a decision by the owners to sell it for an apartment development.

Dunnes Coal Yard, which has been trading off Baggot Street Bridge at 50 Percy Place, Dublin 4, since 1895, could well set a record price for an infill residential site when it is sold by tender through Ganly Walters on June 22nd.

The last remaining coal yard is run by Gordons at Portobello, Dublin 8.

Though no guide price is being issued, some valuers have estimated that the quarter-acre site at 50 Percy Place should easily make over €8.5 million, given its superb location in one of the most vibrant, yet safe, areas of the city.

It also has frontage directly on to the Grand Canal. Apartments in the immediate area fetch top prices because of the convenience of being half way between the city centre and Ballsbridge.

It is about 150 metres from the junction of Upper Baggot Street and Haddington Road, where there is a good mixture of restaurants and bars. A house on the site will be demolished as part of the redevelopment.

Keiron Diamond of the selling agents described the coal yard as "easily the best apartment site near the city centre".

It is that and more. Because the plot has a mixed commercial and residential zoning, architect John Fleming suggests that if the planners give permission for a five-storey block in keeping with heights in the immediate area, the site could accommodate 40 one and two-bedroom apartments over a retail or office premises of 125sq m (1,346sq ft).

Most of the apartments would be two-bedroom units. There is also scope to provide 24 basement car-parking spaces.

Apartment sites in the south inner city have been virtually unobtainable in recent years and those that went for sale on the open market made top prices.

There are any number of buyers in the market for sites in this area largely because of the insatiable demand for apartments in good city centre areas.

These are still letting exceptionally well in a mixed market that has seen most of the new business going into the city centre.

Most young people have a strong preference for renting close to the city centre near their workplace and social attractions.