Comer Group is an international property development firm established by brothers Luke and Brian Comer. The company has its headquarters in London, and is mainly active in the UK and Ireland.
Comer Group is an international property development firm established by brothers Luke and Brian Comer. The company has its headquarters in London, and is mainly active in the UK and Ireland.
Luke and Brian Comer were plasterers from County Galway, Ireland, who moved to London in 1984 and expanded into property development. [1] They set up the first of their many property development companies in 1985. [2] Comer Group Limited was incorporated in 2003. [3]
The growth of the brothers' business in Ireland was helped by investments in stalled 'Celtic Tiger' developments and buying up heavily discounted properties. [4] By May 2023, the brothers were running a property portfolio with an estimated value of over €1 billion. [5]
The companies' UK projects included the conversion of the listed Friern Hospital (formerly Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum) to residential accommodation in the mid-1990s as Princess Park Manor, [6] redevelopment of the former Royal Masonic School for Boys in Bushey, Hertfordshire as Royal Connaught Park, [7] a housing development in Portland, Dorset, [8] and a proposed conversion of a former office block in Southend into residential apartments. [9] In Ireland, Comer projects include redevelopment of the University College Dublin veterinary college in Ballsbridge, [4] redevelopment of the Corrib Great Southern Hotel in Galway, [10] completion of a partly-built tower block, the Sentinel, in the Sandyford district of Dublin, [10] [11] and redevelopment of an apartment block in Ballysadare, County Sligo. [10]
In July 2023, Comer launched an affordable home division, Dovepark Properties, to manage and maintain units across the group's UK residential developments. [12]
In September 2023, Comer Homes Group was ordered to demolish a build-to-rent development at Mast Quay in the Woolwich Dockyard area of southeast London. The second phase of Mast Quay, east of phase 1 (and adjacent to the Woolwich Ferry carpark), was completed in late 2022 and comprised towers of 23, 11, nine and six storeys, but differed markedly from what had originally been proposed. Comer proposed revisions to the design in December 2022 when construction was nearly finished. [13] However, the build-to-rent development had "26 main deviations to the original planning permission" granted in 2012, and in September 2023, Greenwich Council ordered Comer Homes to demolish the blocks. [14] [15] Comer appealed against the enforcement notice. [16] A planning inquiry was opened in July 2024. [17] [18] In January 2025, the Planning Inspectorate upheld 11 out of the council's 26 objections. The demolition order was conditionally revoked, with Comer given three years to fix issues at the development and ordered to pay £4.4m towards affordable housing, and £2.3m in community infrastructure levy payments. The firm was ordered to replace "visually intrusive" orange cladding, provide promised accessibility features, undertake fire safety work and make public realm improvements at the base of the buildings. [19] Comer Homes accepted the original scheme had not been lawfully implemented and that the existing buildings did not have planning permission; revised planning permission was issued. [20] The demolition order was upheld as an 'ultimate sanction' if the conditions are not met. [21]
London Docklands is the riverfront and former docks in London. It is located in inner east and southeast London, in the boroughs of Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Lewisham, Newham and Greenwich. The docks were formerly part of the Port of London, at one time the world's largest port. After the docks closed, the area had become derelict and poverty-ridden by the 1980s. The Docklands' regeneration began later that decade; it has been redeveloped principally for commercial and residential use. The name "London Docklands" was used for the first time in a government report on redevelopment plans in 1971 and has since been almost universally adopted. The redevelopment created wealth, but also led to some conflict between the new and old communities in the area.
Woolwich Dockyard was an English naval dockyard along the river Thames at Woolwich - originally in north-west Kent, now in southeast London - where many ships were built from the early 16th century until the late 19th century. William Camden called it 'the Mother Dock of all England'. By virtue of the size and quantity of vessels built there, Woolwich Dockyard is described as having been 'among the most important shipyards of seventeenth-century Europe'. During the Age of Sail, the yard continued to be used for shipbuilding and repair work more or less consistently; in the 1830s a specialist factory within the dockyard oversaw the introduction of steam power for ships of the Royal Navy. At its largest extent it filled a 56-acre site north of Woolwich Church Street, between Warspite Road and New Ferry Approach; 19th-century naval vessels were fast outgrowing the yard, however, and it eventually closed in 1869. The former dockyard area is now partly residential, partly industrial, with remnants of its historic past having been restored.
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1 West India Quay is a landmark 33-storey mixed-use skyscraper situated just north of Canary Wharf business district in east London. Completed in 2004, the development was built by Manhattan Loft Corporation and the now-defunct MWB Group Holdings. The distinctive glass- and aluminium-clad tower was designed by HOK. With its knife-edge profile and elegant curves, 1 West India Quay was one of the first post-tensioned, concrete-framed towers in London.
Salford Quays is an area of Salford, Greater Manchester, England, near the end of the Manchester Ship Canal. Previously the site of Manchester Docks, it faces Trafford across the canal.
Tara Street is a railway station in central Dublin, Ireland. It is adjacent to the Loopline Bridge on George's Quay.
Dublin is one of the oldest capital cities in Europe – dating back over a thousand years. Over the centuries and particularly in the 18th century or Georgian era, it acquired a distinctive style of architecture. Since the 1960s, Dublin has been extensively re-developed, sometimes resulting in the replacement of earlier buildings. Some of this has been controversial with preservationists regarding the development as unwelcome.
The Berkeley Group Holdings plc is a British property developer and house-builder based in Cobham, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
The U2 Tower was a cancelled skyscraper which was proposed to be constructed in Dublin, Ireland. The site proposed was in the South Docklands (SODO) campshires, at the corner of Sir John Rogerson's Quay and Britain Quay, by the confluence of the River Liffey, the River Dodder, and the Grand Canal. The design announced on 12 October 2007 was by Foster and Partners. Reports suggested a building height of 120 metres, "well over 120 metres", and 180 metres, any of which would have made it the tallest building on the island of Ireland. The building was planned to be an apartment building, with a recording studio owned by the rock group U2 in a "pod" at the top. Construction was to begin in 2008 and end in 2011, at a cost of €200m. In October 2008, the project was cancelled because of the economic downturn at the time. Proposals to revive the plan were reported in July 2013. However, they did not come to fruition and the 79-metre, 22-storey Capital Dock development has since been built on the site.
Grand Canal Dock is a Southside area near the city centre of Dublin, Ireland. It is located on the border of eastern Dublin 2 and the westernmost part of Ringsend in Dublin 4, surrounding the Grand Canal Docks, an enclosed harbour where the Grand Canal comes to the River Liffey. The area has undergone significant redevelopment since 2000, as part of the Dublin Docklands area redevelopment project.
George's Quay is a street and quay in Dublin on the southern bank of the River Liffey. It is located between Burgh Quay and Hawkins Street to the west, and City Quay and Talbot Memorial Bridge to the east.
Ballymore Group is an Ireland-based international property development company. The majority of the company's employees and business activities are located in the UK.
The Docklands Strategic Development Zone (SDZ) (known officially as the North Lotts and Grand Canal Dock SDZ Planning Scheme) is a controversial strategic planning area in Dublin, Ireland located east of the city centre on both sides of the River Liffey in the North Wall and Grand Canal Dock areas.
Spire London, previously known as Hertsmere House, is a construction project located in West India Quay, near Canary Wharf. Developed by Greenland Group and designed by HOK, construction on the tallest building of 67 stories commenced in 2016, and was targeted for completion in 2021.
Gold Fields House was a high rise office block in the Sydney central business district on the corner of Alfred and Pitt streets. Completed in 1966, it was one of the earliest high rise buildings in Sydney. The tower of 27 storeys was designed by Peddle, Thorp and Walker "as a balance to the AMP Building" constructed four years earlier in 1962 at the other end of Circular Quay. Together they created a "gateway" to the city of Sydney. It was sold for redevelopment in 2014 and demolished in 2017/2018.
Old Woolwich or Woolwich Central Riverside is an area along the Thames in Woolwich, South East London. It is the oldest inhabited part of Woolwich, going back to an Anglo-Saxon riverside settlement. When the demographic centre of Woolwich shifted south in the 1800s, the area became a Victorian slum. Most of Old Woolwich was cleared in the 20th and early 21st centuries to make way for industrial, infrastructural and other large-scale developments. Although most of the earlier buildings have been demolished, the area has retained some interesting architecture, including the Georgian parish church, the Edwardian foot tunnel rotunda and two cinemas of the 1930s.
Luke and Brian Comer are Irish billionaire property developers and the founders and owners of the Comer Group, a privately owned UK property development company.
Sandyford House is a large office development on Sandyford Road in Sandyford, Newcastle upon Tyne. It was the offices and meeting place of Tyne and Wear County Council from its formation in 1974 until it was abolished in 1986.
Clancy Quay is a residential development of houses and apartments in Islandbridge, Dublin, Ireland. The development and surrounds originally housed an artillery barracks, known as Islandbridge Barracks and later Clancy Barracks, before closing in 1998. Although it has a "quay" designation, it does not form one of the Dublin quays proper.
