Greystar is closing in on the purchase of Dalguise House near the south Dublin village of Monkstown for about €30 million.
Upon completion of the deal, the US-headquartered real estate giant is expected to pursue a plan to develop several hundred apartments aimed towards the upper end of the capital’s private rented sector market on the nine-acre site.
While the property's current owners secured planning permission from An Bord Pleanála in August 2020 for the construction of a 290-unit residential scheme, this remains the subject of judicial review proceedings being led by the Monkstown Road Residents Association. It is unclear at this point whether or not Greystar will look to deliver on the existing plan in the event that the High Court upholds An Bord Pleanála's original decision. A company spokesman declined to comment when asked by The Irish Times to confirm its purchase of, or intentions for, the south Dublin site.
The development of the land at Dalguise House will represent Greystar's first ground-up project in the Irish market. To date, the South Carolina-headquartered company has confined its activity here to the purchase of apartment portfolios completed by other tier-one developers. Greystar made its first investment in Ireland in July 2019, paying €175.5 million for 268 high-end apartments at Dublin Landings, the million square foot mixed-use development Ballymore delivered over recent years in partnership with Oxley in the Dublin docklands. It completed its second acquisition last year, paying €177 million for 342 apartments developed by Cairn Homes at its Griffith Wood scheme at Griffith Avenue in Marino, Dublin 3.
In the case of Dalguise House, Greystar’s Irish team is expected to make use of its own capacity and that of its wider global operations to design, develop and manage a residential rental scheme within the grounds of the property, which is a protected structure. The company’s plans will no doubt come in for close scrutiny judging by the strength of local opposition to the 290-unit scheme approved for the site by An Bord Pleanála in 2020.
The proposed development by Lulani Dalguise Ltd, a company headed up at the time by property developers Bernard Doyle, Myles Crofton and tech entrepreneur Michael Sweeney, was met with 150 submissions from residents in the area. Those to make submissions included several local TDs, Ossian Smyth (Green), Cormac Devlin (Fianna Fáil) and Richard Boyd Barrett (Solidarity-People Before Profit).
