JACK FAGAN Commercial Property Editor Newly launched housebuilder Cairn Homes is set to build out the housing scheme already approved by city planners for the grounds of the Redemptorist Order at Orwell Road in Rathgar, Dublin 6.

Cairn, which recently raised €400 million in equity capital following its launch on the London Stock Exchange, outbid eight other development and investment companies for the Marianella seminary, church and grounds, which extend to 3.28 hectares (8.11 acres).

Commercial agents WK Nowlan handled the sale of the site for around €42 million, one of the best development opportunities to have come on the market in Dublin’s southside for well over a decade.

Cairn Homes is understood to be prepared to develop out most of the site on the lines of the blueprints prepared by Michael Hussey of architect O'Mahony Pike. That firm has been responsible for a high percentage of the very best apartment developments in the Dublin area over the past 25 years. .

‘The Marianella scheme provides for the building of 199 apartments, most of them two- and three-bedroom units, as well as 12 five-bedroom semi-detached houses. There was also provision for a creche and 303 car parking spaces.

The Cairn scheme is now likely to finish up with a further 40 to 50 houses, because about a quarter of the entire campus (0.92 hectare/2.28 acres) was excluded from the original planning application as the Redemptorists had initially planned to use it for a smaller monastery.

This is no longer part of the plan and the extra ground available to Cairn Homes will allow them to build additional houses on this part of the site.

The successful launch of Cairn Homes by Scottish accountant Alan McIntosh and Michael Stanley of the leading Stanley house building family will put the company in a strong position to acquire the best of the housing sites coming on the market.

A great many of the small to medium-sized housebuilders are finding it difficult to buy in good sites because of the restricted bank borrowing.