More than 150 student bed spaces to be built on Cork city site 

ONE-hundred and fifty-four student bed spaces are set to be created in a new 25-apartment structure in Victoria Cross.

The eight-storey apartment block will be constructed at the former Kelleher’s Tyres Service Centre, on Victoria Cross Road, Cork.

Conditional permission was granted to Kevin Lynch, who is set to develop the site despite a small number of objections from residents in the locality.

The existing commercial building is set to be demolished, and an eight-storey apartment block will be constructed in its place

The accommodation is broken down into four four-bedroom apartments, three five-bedroom apartments, eight six-bedroom apartments, five seven-bedroom apartments, and five eight-bedroom apartments with ancillary common room and an office/reception area.

Three objections were submitted on the development, two from the same objector.

One states that the eight-storey apartment block will be an “excessive intrusion” while the building would be “out of step with the height of the existing development.”

Meanwhile, the second objector believes the structure is “entirely inappropriate”.

“Victoria Cross Road is already blighted with poorly designed student apartments that are converted into commercial short-term summer lets,” the objection said.

It goes on to state that buildings such as these ‘provide a poor visual gateway into the city centre as their design appears to favour a ‘squeeze them in whatever way you can’ attitude, rather than a design that is architecturally pleasing’.

The same objector reiterated their stance following further information provided by the developer.

Fifteen conditions have been attached to the granting of planning permission from Cork City Council, some of which include a stipulation that there will be no vehicular parking within the development, and there will be a provision for 90 bicycle spaces.

The developers also have to pay a contribution of almost €205,000 to the City Council.

In the application, the developers say that there will still be an excess demand for student accommodation by 2024, even if all of the permitted projects currently in the pipeline are completed by then.

“The proposed development makes a positive contribution by replacing a disused and largely brownfield site with a development of high architectural quality which will result in a visual improvement and consolidation of recent new development in the area,” the application states.

The same site has been the subject of a number of planning applications since 2003.