7th January (Issue 478)
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.
INDUSTRIAL / LOGISTICS
Dundalk, Co. Louth Pharma giant MSD is buying the three-storey, 167,055 sq. ft vaccines plant, located at Dundalk Science and Technology Park, from Chinese rival Wuxi in a €500m deal. Wuxi invested €200m in 2019 to build the plant, which employs 200 people. MSD says it will add 150 jobs to the plant over the coming year. The plant has been working exclusively with MSD on a 20-year vaccine supply contract since it formally opened. The two companies said the transition is to complete in the first half of 2025. MSD will now have 8 sites in Ireland, employing approx. 3,000 people. The company said it expects to grow job numbers by approx. 1,000 over the next year in the State. The Irish Times, 6th January
PURPOSE BUILT STUDENT ACCOMMODATION
Docklands, Dublin 1 Global real estate company Greystar has completed the purchase of Point Campus in Dublin, the largest off-campus student accommodation complex in the country, from global asset manager DWS Group for approx. €150m. The student accommodation centre comprises 966 bed spaces and is fully occupied. Amenities include a gym, cinema, common room and roof terrace. The accommodation will be managed by Canvas, the European student platform operated by Greystar with locations in the UK, France, Netherlands and Spain. Greystar also has schemes at Dublin Landings, Griffith Woods and the newly completed Brickfield Square in Dublin 12. RTE, 20th December
HOSPITALITY
Haddington Road, Dublin 4 Plans to demolish Smyth’s pub and replace it with a pub and apartments is facing opposition. Courtney Lounge Bars Ltd is proposing the demolition of all existing buildings on site at 10 Haddington Rd and the construction of a four-storey and part five-storey mixed-use building comprising a pub at basement and ground floor and six residential units at the upper floors. However, the Pembroke Road Association has told the council that “a local pub can be a wonderful social amenity in a mixed residential area, as Smyth’s has been over the years, but a ‘super’ pub in the same type of area is a problem”. The Irish Times, 6th January
Druid Lane, Co Galway A liquidator has been appointed to the company behind the Michelin-star restaurant Loam and its sister-bakery/wine bar Éan in Galway City. Loam first opened on Fairgreen Road in Galway city in 2014 and received a Michelin star the following year. In November 2020, they opened Éan on Druid Lane. After facing the crosswinds of operating a hospitality business post-pandemic, they decided to close Loam in January 2023. It was the second of Galway’s Michelin-star restaurants to close at the time following the closure of Tartare the previous August. The Business Post, 6th January
OFFICE
Tara Street, Dublin 2 Workday is finalising a lease on its new European headquarters in Dublin. The company selected College Square, a mixed-use development of 540,000 sq. ft of office space located on a corner of Tara Street, Poolbeg Street and Townsend Street, developed by Marlet Property Group. Newly filed accounts show it is to take an €8m hit relating to its decision to ditch plans for a custom-built European headquarters in Grangegorman earlier this year. The company established its European headquarters in Dublin 15 years ago following its acquisition of Irish company Cape Clear Software. The Business Post, 30th December
Docklands, Dublin 1 Kennedy Wilson has made its first office letting at Coopers Cross. The Sunday Times understands that the company has rented two floors to Wells Fargo, the American multinational bank. A filing on the commercial property price register in mid-December shows the fourth and fifth floors in Block 1 of Coopers Cross have been leased at an annual rent of approx. €1.44m. Wells Fargo has been leasing space in a 1990s office block, Harbourmaster Place, at the IFSC. The two floors comprise 25,609 sq. ft and the deal equates to €56 psf. Coopers Cross was jointly developed by Kennedy Wilson and Cain International, who purchased the site in 2018. The mixed-use scheme, which sits on six acres, consists of two office blocks, in addition to apartments and retail spaces. The Sunday Times, 5th January
RETAIL
Cork Market The retail market in Cork has shown significant improvement in the last 5 years according to Savills. Occupancy rates on Patrick Street has increased notably, climbing from 69% in 2020 to nearly 75% approaching 2025. Patrick Street has welcomed an impressive roster of new retailers since 2021, including The North Face, Dune Shoes, Carrolls Gifts, Flannels, JD Sports, Mango, Krispy Kreme, and more recently Austen & Blake and Lovisa. Savills also understand a Spanish brand is reportedly taking a significant 40,000 sq. ft in the former Debenhams store, which will see the occupancy rate go from 75% to almost 95%, which indicates the importance of having this anchor store occupied, in the city’s prime retail street. Opera Lane now has full occupancy for the first time since Q4 2019, with Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Works opening last week and Mountain Warehouse due to open early 2025. Typical leases now range from five to ten years, often with break clauses at years three and six. The Irish Examiner, 27th December
RESIDENTIAL/DEVELOPMENT
Fenian Street, Dublin 2 A firm linked to the O’Callaghan hotel group received permission from Dublin City Council to demolish a range of derelict homes and build 82 apartments across three blocks ranging from eight to ten storeys. The properties cover approx. 0.5-acres. In June 2024 Gold Run Properties Ltd applied for permission to demolish several buildings on Fenian Street, Bass Place and Sandwith Street Upper in Dublin 2. The local homeowners who live in the city centre opposed, saying the project was out of character with the area and heavy machinery used for the construction work could damage their old houses that are in a “fragile” state. The concerns were not upheld by the council. The Business Post, 2nd January
Williamstown Road, Waterford City Liam Neville Developments is seeking permission for the construction of a 3,078 sq. ft two-storey creche, and 95 houses, consisting of 26 three-bed semi-detached homes, 33 three-bed terraced/end of terrace homes, 8 two-bed terraced houses,16 two-bed units and 12 one-bed units. The development will be accessed from the existing Cul Dara access road, and will include public open spaces, car parking of 110 spaces, cycle parking and all associated site works and infrastructure services. The Irish Independent, 2nd January
Nationwide Construction Outlook According to Construction Information Services (CIS), the number of housing construction starts will decline this year and in 2026. CIS said construction of 55,000 new housing units had started by the end of Q3 last year. CIS is also projecting that the number of all construction projects valued below €100m this year in Ireland will halve. It said that investment in new hospitality jumped 240% in the first three quarters of 2024 compared to the corresponding period in 2023 but that the commercial sector faces a 45% decline in investment in respect of 2024. It reckons that Ireland’s civil construction sector will see a 49% fall in investment for 2024. The Irish Independent, 3rd January
Derelict Site Levy An enforcement drive to eradicate derelict sites has seen more than 2,000 statutory notices issued by local authorities to site owners in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Limerick, new figures show. Council officials have ramped up investigations during 2024 and new dedicated derelict sites teams have been established to tackle the problem. Councils have also begun taking a hard line on levies with several councils kicking off new charging regimes since January 1. At least one – Cork City Council (CCC) – has now also begun making legal moves to obtain charges over derelict sites where levies have not been paid. A CCC spokesman said that it “applies a robust approach” to derelict site levies and had collected €517,000 in levies in 2024, three times what it collected in 2023. Local authorities are increasingly hitting owners of derelict sites with a levy of 7% on the market value of the site once it has been placed on its derelict sites register. The Irish Independent, 6th January
Rental Costs According to cost-of-living website Numbeo, Dublin is the 9th most expensive city to live in Europe. The rankings are based on prices of consumer goods like groceries, restaurants, transportation, utilities and rent across 141 cities, and are given an index reading relative to living costs in New York City, driven by rental expenses. Looking only at rent costs Dublin came fourth, behind London, Zurich and Geneva and ahead of Amsterdam and Luxembourg. Average monthly rents in Dublin ranged between €2,294 and €2,704, depending on location in Q3 of 2024, compared to the national average of €1,955. The Irish Times, 6th January
FHS Scheme Overview Only around half of over 6,000 would-be home buyers approved for the First Home Scheme (FHS) have completed a purchase and gotten their keys. The FHS is a shared equity scheme launched in July 2022 to bridge the so called “affordability gap” between the price of new homes and the amount that a typical first-time buyer can borrow. Under the scheme, the State will pay up to 30% of the market value of a home in return for a stake in the ownership of the property. Over 3,000 homes have been bought and 6,047 first-time buyers have been approved under the FHS since its launch in 2022. Since its introduction, 13,587 potential buyers have registered their interest. Of those approved, 74% are based in Dublin, Cork, Kildare, Meath and Wicklow. The Irish Independent, 5th January
Year In Review In last year’s Sunday Times Property Price Guide, most of the Dublin estate agents surveyed predicted price increases of 2-3% for 2024. One year on, the actual hikes they’ve seen range from 5-6% up to 15% for certain properties. The latest Residential Property Price Index from the Central Statistics Office shows that house prices in Dublin rose by 10.9% in the 12 months to October, while apartment prices went up by 8.4%. The highest median price for a dwelling in the entire country was €645k, in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, while Dublin 6 was the most expensive Eircode in the capital with a median price of €725k. The Sunday Times, 5th January
Blackrock, Dublin 4 The Blackrock Clinic has secured planning from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council for a new cardiology department, eye centre and additional inpatient bedrooms at its south Dublin site. The new facilities are the first phase of a 16-year plan which will also include a second hospital building on site. McGill Planning stated that some of the main elements of the expansion will include the provision of a dedicated cancer centre, a new specialised women’s health centre, additional theatre capacity and additional high-tech interventional cardiology laboratories. The clinic admitted 52k inpatient and day-care patients in 2023 and this figure is expected to grow to 78k by 2033, which is an approx. 50% increase over the next decade. McGill Planning revealed that the existing St Catherine’s site will host the second hospital building and deliver additional theatres; additional cath lab capacity to meet growing demand in existing services; the development of a new cancer centre; and the addition of new inpatient bed capacity. The Irish Times, 6th January
OTHER
Rochfortbridge, Co. Westmeath Lumcloon Energy has initiated plans to build a €1bn data centre. A pre-application consultation with An Bord Pleanála has been submitted to develop a giant 250-megawatt data centre near Rochfortbridge. The project is being developed in partnership with Korean engineering company, SK Ecoplant. The centre will have 6 two-storey data halls. Lumcloon is also finishing the construction of a €500m gas plant in Westmeath. The Business Post, 5th January
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