27th August (Issue 462)
Welcome to the Origin Capital Weekly Irish Property Review. This update is designed to provide you with a full recap of the latest property news from the media over the last seven days.
Office
Tara Street, Dublin 2 College Square, the office scheme developed by Marlet Property Group, has been selected by Workday for its new European headquarter office. The US enterprise technology giant has agreed to occupy 475,000 sq. ft of the office accommodation at College Square. The deal is understood to be the largest single office letting to have taken place in the European office market since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020. The Irish Times, 27th August
Ballsbridge, Dublin 4 Fine Grain Property, an Irish company with roots in Singapore, is poised to acquire Connaught House. Agents acting on behalf of Grant Thornton were guiding €80m for Connaught House. It is understood that the property, which has a rent roll of €7.1m, is under offer to Fine Grain for €63m (20% discount), and approx. half the valuation placed on the property as recently as 2022. Tenants include CBRE, Macquarie Aviation Finance and drug company Alkermes. The Sunday Times, 25th August
North Docks, Dublin 1 North Docks One and Two is set to sell for €85m to Starwood. Receiver Interpath Advisory was seeking €130m for the offices. The properties were on sale for €155m a year ago. Owners Oaktree Capital Management and the National Asset Management Agency will get wiped in the deal, losing €35m. Senior lender Pimco, which appointed the receivers and is owed €120m, also faces a haircut. The Sunday Times, 25th August
Fitzwilliam Street Lower, Dublin 2 Law firm Addleshaw Goddard will move into a new office block at Fitzwilliam No.28 from January 2025, with the new build block serving as the firm’s Dublin headquarters. The firm signed a 14-year lease with SMBC Aviation Capital, who acquired the block’s entire footprint in late 2022. Addleshaw Goddard will take over an entire floor at the premises, alongside leasing a portion of the second floor. Its total leased footprint will come up to 27,722 sq. ft. The Business Post, 22nd August
Sligo International Workplace Group (IWG) is planning to open its first co-working office space in Connacht later this year. The hybrid working solutions provider, which operates under the brands Regus and Spaces, has plans to open the flexible workspace in the Embankment building in Sligo Town. The space will operate under IWG’s Regus brand and include co-working spaces, private offices, meeting rooms and creative spaces. The new location, situated on Rockwood Parade, is set to open in the last quarter of this year. The Business Post, 23rd August
HOSPITALITY
Mount Juliet, Co Kilkenny Barry English is swooping to buy the Mount Juliet resort for approx. €50m. English is believed to be in exclusive talks to buy the Kilkenny estate from Tetrarch Capital and the businessman Emmet O’Neill. The estate agents JLL Ireland gave a guide price of €45m for the 125-bedroom hotel. Tetrarch, which also owns CityWest Hotel in Dublin, is understood to have paid €15m for it in 2014 but has since made substantial investment in the hotel and estate. The Sunday Times, 25th August
Temple Bar, Dublin 2 A planning appeal has heard that if An Bord Pleanála was to refuse planning retention for Temple Bar ‘superpub’ The Giddy Dolphin, it would lead to the closure of the premises and the loss of jobs. Keywell DAC is appealing against Dublin City Council’s planning refusal to retain The Giddy Dolphin as a licensed premises. Since March of this year, Keywell is the new owner of the Clarence Hotel and Dollard House which houses The Giddy Dolphin, 2-5 Wellington Quay and 1-5 Essex Street East, Dublin 2. The Irish Independent, 27th August
RETAIL
Grafton Street, Dublin 2 Fashion giant Mango is planning on opening a new shop on Dublin’s Grafton Street as its Irish expansion continues to gather pace. The Barcelona-headquartered clothing retailer has applied for planning permission from Dublin City Council. Mango’s existing city centre store in Dublin, on Henry Street, is temporarily closed until September for refurbishment. The Irish Independent, 22nd August
Kinsale, Co Cork An Bord Pleanála has granted Aldi Ireland full planning permission for a new €11m store in Kinsale. The new development will have a gross floor area spanning 19,579 sq. ft. Cork County Council had previously granted local authority planning permission for the project, which includes 102 car parking spaces, 24 bike spaces and four electric vehicle charging points. The development, located at New Road & Barrack Street, in Kinsale, will also include a single-storey retail building with a gross retail area of 2,432 sq. ft. The Irish Examiner, 20th August
INDUSTRIAL / LOGISTICS
Grange Castle Business Park, Dublin 22 Google has been refused permission to build a new data centre in south county Dublin. The tech giant’s application to build the 779,307 sq. ft data storage facility at its existing Dublin operation was refused on several grounds, including concerns over insufficient capacity in the electricity network. In June, Google Ireland Limited applied for permission to build a new data centre in Grange Castle Business Park South. The Business Post, 27th August
Residential / Development
Limerick Siec Group, a Chinese-owned property development firm, has acquired a large parcel of land in Limerick that is primed for a €100m housing project. The land, based in Raheen, Co Limerick, has full planning permission for 384 homes and was bought for a fee of approx. €4.5m by Siec Group. A ten-year permission was secured to build 202 houses and 182 apartments on the lands in June 2022. At the time, the project was valued at €109m. The Business Post, 26th August
Dún Laoghaire, South Dublin Dublin’s longest running strategic housing development planning case, a build-to-rent application that involved the construction of several storeys of apartments on top of a protected Victorian house, has been refused by An Bord Pleanála. Ted Living Ltd in November 2021 applied for fast-track permission for 146 rental-only apartments in blocks up to eight storeys on the old Tedcastles Yard industrial site in Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin. As part of the scheme the developer wanted to remove the roof of the protected structure and build three storeys of apartments on top of it. The Irish Times, 21st August
Mortgage Rates Homeowners who took out home loans with the non-bank lenders are set to be hit with increases of up to 3.5% in the interest on their ¬mortgages when their fixed rates end. It is estimated that approx. 80,000 homeowners are due to come to the end of fixed rates this year. The Irish Independent Doddl.ie Mortgage Switching Index shows that while some pillar banks have reduced their rates by approx. 1%, non-bank lenders are stuck at the height of the market due to different funding models. It means mortgage holders with these institutions could face repayment rates of over 6% when they exit their fixed arrangements. The Irish Independent, 26th August
Housing Taoiseach Simon Harris has said that approx. 40,000 new homes would be completed this year and reiterated his pledge to build a quarter of million new homes over the next five years. In a speech delivered at the annual Michael Collins commemoration at Béal na Bláth in Co Cork on Sunday, Mr Harris said: “This year, we will exceed our housing targets with almost 40,000 homes built. This includes the biggest social housing build since 1975.” The Irish Times, 25th August
Usher’s Island, Dublin 8 An Taisce has told Dublin City Council that the building where James Joyce’s The Dead was set “is of too great a cultural heritage importance for conversion to multiple apartments”. That is according to An Taisce’s Dublin city planning officer Kevin Duff as part of its objection concerning plans by Brimwood UC to convert the property at 15 Usher’s Island, in Dublin 8, into 10 apartments. The Irish Independent, 27th August
Daft Report According to a report by Daft.ie, market rents rose by an average of 2% compared with the first three months of the year. The move marks the 14th consecutive quarter in which rents nationwide have increased and the 45th time in the last 48 quarters. The average open-market rent nationwide in the second quarter of the year was €1,922 per month, up 7.3% YoY and 41% higher than before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. On August 1st, there were just over 2,200 homes available to rent across the State, effectively unchanged on the same date a year previously and half the 2015-2019 average of 4,400. The Irish Times, 26th August
Sandymount, Dublin 4 Oaktree will seek an equity partner for the Glass Bottle housing development, it has emerged. The project, which will see the construction of 3,800 homes on the Sandymount plot, as well as the equivalent of a skyscraper of office and life science space, is being developed by Oaktree in collaboration with Johnny Ronan’s Ronan Group Real Estate (RGRE) and Lioncor, a development company jointly owned by Oaktree and Dublin-based Alanis Capital. The Glass Bottle plot measures approx. 37 acres. The Business Post, 23rd August
Vacant Site Levy Dublin City Council is waiting on property owners who have been singled out for vacant site levies to pay up tens of millions of euros, with some levies dating back to 2018. New data released to the Business Post by Dublin City Council has shown there are 135 of these levies that are still unpaid. Dublin City Council added that these landowners have failed to pay a collective €35m in levies to date. Dublin City Council itself also has sites it controls listed. Based on the register, Dublin City Council owns €57.79m worth of vacant property, which means that they are required to pay €8.25m in levies. The Business Post, 23rd August
An Bord Pleanála The maximum number of ordinary board members that may be appointed to the board of An Bord Pleanála has been temporarily increased from 14 to 17, the Minister for Housing has announced. Darragh O’Brien said the rise in membership will allow for the reduction of cases on hand within the board. The Fianna Fáil TD also said that he has appointed eight new full-term ordinary board members to the board following an open recruitment process. The Irish Times, 26th August
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