Colm Wu continues sell-off as Clifton Court hits market

The investment property is currently generating a total of €854,000 a year in rents from two tenants

Donal Buckley

Investment manager Colm Wu is selling the Clifton Court Hotel at 10 and 11 Eden Quay, Dublin 1 and agent Robert Colleran is seeking offers of over €8m.

Located just off O’Connell St and overlooking the River Liffey, Rosie Hackett Bridge and the boardwalk, the investment property is currently generating a total of €854,000 a year in rents from two tenants. One of those tenants operates the 30-bedroom hotel and pays €620,000 per year in rent. The other operates the James Connolly bar and Kyodai Izakaya Japanese restaurant and pays €234,000 per annum. This suggests a gross yield of over 10.04pc.

With a combined floor area extending to 1,789 sqm, 10 Eden Quay is a four-storey over basement building with a four-storey extension to the rear. Number 11 Eden Quay is a five-storey over basement building with a part three-storey, part two-storey extension to the rear. The properties were rebuilt in 1917 and have a flat roof.

Mr Colleran says that there could also be potential to develop the property upwards and add one or two floors of additional hotel bedrooms which could mean up to 20 bedrooms, subject to planning permission.

The two-star hotel has a separate entrance and has been recently refurbished to a reasonably high standard and its 30 bedrooms include a mix of single, double, and triple ensuite bedrooms with a reception, kitchen and breakfast lounge located on the first floor.

The hotel tenant holds a 10-year lease from May 2022 and there is a mutual break option at the end of the fifth year, subject to six months’ notice.

After it was offered for sale in 2021 with an auction guide price of more than €3m, Mr Wu bought it for a sum believed to be over that price.

Since then he has sold a number of Dublin properties. Last year he sold the former Dobbin’s restaurant set between the two Mount Streets for €850,000. Unused for several years, that mews property had been a very fashionable restaurant between the 1970s and 1990s.

Last year he also sold 37 Dame St, Dublin 2, almost opposite the Central Plaza, for €2.3m. Extending to 6,818 sqft, it comprised a two-bay five-storey former house over a concealed basement.

Previous to those sales he also sold the former Stone Leaf gastropub, at 67 Lower Leeson Street, Dublin 2, a Georgian mid-terrace, four-storey over basement premises for which he had been seeking €2.75m.