'Bower Hill' estate in Athlone to go on market in early 2021

Fifty-five homes to be built at the new Bower Hill housing estate in Athlone are due to be launched on the property market early in the new year.

Advertising hoardings were recently erected at the prominent and long-vacant site for the development, which once housed the Bower girls' national school and the Athlone Town FC clubhouse.

The advertising encourages passers-by to register their interest in the homes at www.bowerhill.ie and it states that the development will be launching early in 2021, with Sherry Fitzgerald O'Meara acting as agent for the properties.

In August 2019 the developer, Ardent Lakeside Property Ltd, secured planning approval for a €13 million development comprising 55 housing units.

The development is to be located on a 1.45 hectare site at Lower Road, Athlone, with a boundary onto Bower Lane.

Initially, plans for 69 housing units had been lodged in June 2017, but these were turned down by the council, which cited a "substandard design approach" to the development.

The applicants returned, in August 2018, with a design which they said "addresses the challenging topography of the site" in a slightly smaller scheme of 55 housing units.

Planning approval was then granted by the local authority a year later, subject to 28 conditions.

The development is set to include 18 housing blocks, containing, in total, nine four-bedroom houses, 31 three-bed houses, four two-bed houses, five two-bed duplexes, five one-bed apartments, and one two-bed apartment.