150 new jobs as building activity resumes in city

Up to 150 jobs are to be created in the New Year, when construction work begins on more than 70 new homes in Knocknacarra – the first major building development in the city in more than six years.
The project on the Upper Ballymoneen Road – which will have a sales value of around €20 million – is being built by local company Burkeway Homes, with funding from the National Asset Management Agency.
Hoarding is expected to be erected around the 7.8 acre site – located behind the Drisín estate – in the run-up to Christmas, and builders are set to break ground on January 5.
The jobs will include labourers, drivers, blocklayers, carpenters, electricians, plumbers and plasterers, while there will also be specialists involved in the installation of heat recovery and solar panelling. The project is also expected to create indirect employment.
NAMA is understood to have been working closely with developer Michael Burke over the past 18 months to bring the project forward – and address the well-documented chronic shortage of homes for sale on the western side of the city.
The development will include 73 homes, and there is potential for around 20 more units on an adjacent three-acre site, also owned by Mr Burke.
Phase 1 of the development involves 13 homes – 10 semi-detached and three detached – which are expected to be put on the market in March, and work ‘rolling through’ to the next phase.
Mr Burke told the Galway City Tribune: “The Ballymoneen venture will be a landmark residential development in Galway. This will be one of the first large-scale residential developments here for the last five years and will offer well-located, high-quality homes designed with families in mind.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.