A joint venture between two UK-based investors has received planning permission for a €40M urban logistics park on Swords Road near Dublin Airport in Santry, County Dublin.

The Airport Trade Park development is the first investment in Ireland for the joint venture between UK and European developer Chancerygate and specialist sustainable and impact investor Bridges Fund Management, which has been behind several similar projects in the UK over the past decade and also works internationally.

With a total floor area of 120K SF, the project will provide 14 Grade A units ranging from 3,600 SF to more than 22K SF on a 5-acre site, with construction due to commence in the autumn.

Once complete, the scheme will have a projected gross development value of around €40M, the partners estimated.

Previously used for office accommodation and civil engineering yard space, the partnership acquired the site from construction company Carey Building Contractors in May 2022 for €4.5M. It is situated around a kilometre south of Dublin Airport and 8 km north of the city centre, putting it near M50 and M1 arterial routes.

The announcement will be a welcome shot in the arm for a previously buoyant market that saw a total of just 160K SF leased across 14 transactions in the first quarter, according to the latest report from Colliers. Deals were significantly below the five-year Q1 average of approximately 694K SF.

Chancerygate has around 1.2M SF of urban logistics space under construction or ready for development across 10 sites in the UK and Europe.

On 1 July, Chancerygate was granted planning permission to speculatively build 41K SF of Grade A urban logistics space in Chichester, and in late June it announced a new joint venture with Hines to develop multi-let urban logistics schemes, funded by Hines European Real Estate Partners III. Its first deal was the acquisition of a site in Oldham to be speculatively developed as 167K SF of logistics space on 7.5 acres.

Bridges is a specialist sustainable and impact investor that works across multiple sectors. Its latest property investment was with longtime development partner Hub in February on an £88M forward-funding deal with Singapore-based real estate developer City Developments Ltd for the mixed-use Yardhouse in Wood Lane, west London.