Leading Galway developer Frank O'Malley has bought Adelaide Road Synagogue at Adelaide Road in Dublin 2, for an expensive apartment development. He is understood to have paid £6.2 million for the synagogue, which will close in May because of a declining congregation. The site is one of the best available for an apartment development in the south inner city. Mr O'Malley is understood to have outbid more than 20 developers in a private tender conducted by Douglas Newman Good. Although there is an existing planning permission for 52 apartment, O'Malley Construction is likely to opt for a smaller and more stylish scheme.

O'Malley has had a great run of success since it entered the Dublin market about eight years ago. The company's Ballsbridge Woods townhouse and apartment scheme at Lansdowne Road, Ballsbridge, is acknowledged as one of the best in Dublin 4. Before Christmas, tit also had a sell-out of all apartments in Merrion Woods, beside the Radisson St Helen's Hotel, at Stillorgan Road.