Student blocks in Dublin and Galway hit the market with €115m price tag as investment rebounds

Irish Independent

21-05-2025

The Dublin property, trading as Mezzino at Mayor Square in the International Financial Services Centre, provides 290 bedspaces. It is located adjacent to the National College of Ireland and is a short walk to Trinity College Dublin.
The Galway facility, known as Cúirt Na Coiribe, has 434 bedspaces and is located close to the University of Galway and Galway city centre. Built by local firm Kenny Developments in 2004, this premises extends to 160,422 sq ft and sits on a 1.414 hectare site. Kenny's sold it some years ago.
Consequently it also comes with full planning permission for an additional 515 beds which would bring it to 920 net beds upon completion.
While this planning permission will expire in about seven months, in January 2026, its existence demonstrates a positive planning history and the prospect that a revised submission could be favourably received by the planning authorities.
Between the University of Galway and Atlantic Technological University campus in the city's eastern suburbs, about 22,700 full-time students attend third-level colleges in Galway. However, the city has only 5,300 purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) beds indicating strong excess demand.
Emma Reardon of Cushman and Wakefield says that both Dublin and Galway PBSAs benefit from robust year-round demand, driven by consistent academic term time occupancy and strong summer business.
PBSA is considered one of the more attractive sectors of the property investment market and last year US investor/developer Hines bought a 298-bed student facility at Stephen's Quarter, Dublin 2, for around €79m, helped by inclusion of a supermarket.
The deals come as new figures from Sherry FitzGerald show that capital flows into the Irish property market totalled €28.7bn in 2024, up 13pc on the year before. It includes investment in student accommodation in 2024 of €230m.
Commercial property capital flows expanding by 75pc year-on-year to €4.5bn. There was a notable improvement in direct commercial investment, up 39pc to €2bn, and development land transactions also grew significantly.
The data shows the residential market continued to dominate activity, accounting for €24.2bn of the total.
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Total spend by non-household entities including institutional investors, local authorities and Approved Housing Bodies (ABH) was up 10pc, although it was still below the 2022 level.
The Private Rented Sector (PRS) remains largely on the sidelines, accounting for just €246m of investment, the weakest seen since 2017, with no forward fund or forward commit PRS transactions reported in 2024. This confirms that PRS investment has largely been replaced by an increase in AHBs funding new supply of rental stock including apartments, rather than both segments growing alongside each other.