Pub fails to pull in auction ‘punters’
Friday, 31 October 2008
The Queen’s Arms, Bridge Street, Coleraine, withdrawn from sale after bids only realised around £1.4m. The prime development site is a victim of the current economic downturn and was expected to have reached around the £4-5m range.
COLERAINE'S Queens Arms bar was withdrawn from auction last Friday when property 'punters' failed to cough up enough cash to match its £4m price tag.
Tony O'Connor, of O'Connor Kennedy Turtle auctioneers, had difficulty pulling in bids from interested parties for two bricks and 'porter' lots on offer at Coleraine's Travel Lodge.
The bar's owners, Vera O'Neill and her two sons, had arrived late, underwhelmed by the prospect that their lots could bring in four 'big ones' and make them Sterling millionaires with a million to spare.
But with less than five bidders in a function room designed for more than one hundred people, the lack of interest was indicative of a certain heat missing from the property market and the ongoing financial freeze and squeeze at the banks.
Tony O'Connor's attempt to sell lot one, a four storey vacant building at No1-3 Bridge Street, with access to Queen Street, attracted just one bid of £400,000.
The lot went unsold. His attempt to sell lot two on its own, The Queens Arms licensed premises at 1-3 Bridge Street, including a 'free' liquor licence worth £200,000 + VAT, with extensive storage space to the rear and access to Circular Road, failed to attract any bids.
The auctioneer's attempt to sell both lots together with a plea: "£2 million to start. Who is going to get me away today?" went unanswered by poker faced property developers sitting silently in the room.
After repeating his plea for the third time, the auctioneer's facial expressions suggested he was not getting away anywhere quickly on Friday.
Describing the lots as an attractive 0.3 acre of land in the heart of Coleraine, he asked: "Who is going to offer me £3m to £4m? Who is going to start me off?"
A bid of £1m came from the floor. A telephone bid of £1.1m from an agent, followed quickly by £1.2m, then another phone bid of £1.3m, but the auction ran out of steam, and cash, at £1.4m. With no more bids forthcoming, the auctioneer's smile evaporated. Tony O'Connor said: "There's no point in proceeding with this today. I appreciate your interest, but there's no point in continuing. It is not enough. At £1.4m, the properties are being withdrawn."
As developers drifted away, Edward Montgomery, of The Honorable The Irish Society, remarked to publican Terry O'Neill: "This time last year you would have filled that room twice over."
Speaking after the failed auction, the O'Neill's, not dampened by the lack of interest, confirmed that The Queens Arms pub will remain open and continue to sell spirits, if not raise them, at their riverside tavern which has sold fine ales to old school sailors, tailors, shirt makers and yeomen for more than 300 years.
