Cork city retailer’s properties spark a lot of interest

Longtime Cork clothes retailer Mannix is currently offloading its entire property portfolio in the city centre, and the amount of interest in the properties so far is a sign of positive trends in the city centre, a property company have said.

Peter O’Meara, a director at Savills Ireland, told The Echo: “The late Dónal Mannix, a man who was involved at the heart of the old retail trade in Cork in the rag trade, as it was called then, died earlier this year, and the portfolio is now on the market.

“There’s a number of buildings on Castle Street and one on Patrick Street, they went on the market in the last week and there’s been eight or nine viewings a day so far, and offers on over 50% of them already which is good, it shows an appetite for the city centre.

“There is a perception out there that the city centre is not in demand - we would totally refute that. We’re thankfully involved a lot of transactions in Cork city centre and we believe the appetite is good, both occupational and in terms of investment and development.” One such example is the opening of a new Urban Outfitters clothing store. Mr O’Meara said: “I think that’s a massive vote of confidence in Cork city centre, for a brand of that significance who trade worldwide to open in Cork.

“One of the reasons they looked at opening here was due to the amount of people from Cork who used to shop in their store in London, they would get stats of people flying to London and back to go shopping and can trace where they came from and a large number of them were from Cork.

“Urban Outfitters like quirky buildings, and 101 Patrick Street is a former religious building, an old methodist church. They’ve done a fantastic job with it.” 

In terms of the future, he said that two key things they’d like to see were the expansion of Penneys and the development of the former Debenhams building, adding: “We’re not the agents there, but there has been a lot of activity on that.”

In general, Mr O’Meara said: “Cork city centre is still very much in demand, there’s been about 25 fascia changes since covid and that’s good.

“When international retailers come to Ireland, they look to Dublin first, Grafton St and Henry St then to centres like Dundrum, Blanchardstown, Liffey Valley, but their next port of call is usually Patrick Street.

“It’s seen as the high street for fashion in Cork but also in the wider region. After that they look to Mahon Point, then Crescent Shopping Centre in Limerick.

“The other thing that’s changed is we had very few food and beverage groups interested in the city centre in the last two years, but all of a sudden in the last two or three months there’s been a number of international brands looking to come to Cork.”

A store at 40-42 Washington St called Mannix and Culhane, which closed in March, is not part of the portfolio and is in separate ownership.