Irish housebuilder Quintain has turned the sod on its €500 million urban hub investment in Adamstown, west Dublin, commencing construction on a 279-unit apartment development aimed at the build-to-rent market. UK grocer Tesco has also signed up as an anchor tenant at the development.
Called The Crossings, Quintain’s first phase of development at the new urban centre in Adamstown will include 279 apartments and more than 91,000sq ft/8,500sq m of space to house two major supermarkets, 20 retail units and five restaurant outlets, along with a multi-storey car park.
Quintain is the housebuilding unit of US private equity giant Lone Star, which has accumulated a massive Irish landbank.
Construction of the apartments has a completion date of mid-2023. Planning permission for a second phase of 185 apartments has been granted and further phases are planned for submission in late 2021 and early 2022.
Quintain has a buyer lined up for the first tranche of its buy-to-rent scheme but Eddie Byrne, joint managing partner with the developer, says "it's too early to say who it is".
New urban centre
Getting this forward funding is key to the construction of such a developments, he says. “You really need to be able to have a buyer lined up in advance.” The Crossings will form an integral part of a new urban centre at Adamstown, which, over the next four to five years, will see the construction by Quintain of almost 1,000 residential units, mostly apartments/duplexes, with a “very small number of houses”.
On the retail side, Tesco has signed a lease for a 40,000sq ft/3,700sq m store, which is set to open in January 2023, with a second leading supermarket anchor store set to open at the same time.
Bannon has been retained as agents for the leasing of the retail units, which will serve an estimated potential shopping population of more than 100,000 people drawn from Adamstown, and the neighbouring suburbs of Lucan, Celbridge and Leixlip.
To date, Quintain and its affiliates have built 1,000 homes in Adamstown, with over 85 per cent occupied by first-time buyers, launching developments such as Tandy’s Lane and Somerton.
Earlier this year it received planning permission to construct 235 new homes at Aderrig in Adamstown, to include 159 houses and 76 apartments. The scale of its total investment in the area is expected to be north of about €3 billion.
Green open space
In June, Quintain completed and transferred ownership to South Dublin County Council of Tandy’s Lane Park, which will provide local residents with easy access to green open space. Another 27-acre green open space – Airlie Park – is set to open by the end of the year and will include a cricket pitch and Astroturf pitches, while a two-acre village green will provide a centre piece for The Crossings development.
Michael Hynes, joint managing partner with Quintain Ireland, said, "This investment will contribute to the social fabric of the area, and is supported by the handover of Tandy's Lane Park to South Dublin County Council. We are very confident in the strong level of demand there is to live in the area, which will be boosted by the new amenities we are delivering."
Quintain owns 220 acres in the Adamstown/Lucan area, where it plans to develop up to 5,000 new homes and 250,000sq ft of commercial space. The company’s broader land portfolio covers 460 acres of prime assets in Ireland at Adamstown, Clonburris, Portmarnock, and Cherrywood.
Adamstown was launched in 2005 as Ireland’s first new planned town since Shannon, Co Clare, in the 1960s.
