The Office of Public Works (OPW) is close to reaching an agreement with Hibernia Reit that would see the Garda Siochana continue to occupy the listed property group’s Harcourt Square building in Dublin for a further six years.
The deal, which may be announced as soon as this week, will end litigation between the OPW and Hibernia over the city centre property. The complex is the regional headquarters of the gardai and houses more than 500 workers, including the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation.
Hibernia bought the property early last year for €70m and has planning permission to develop a €100m, 26,000 sq metre office complex on the site. The property company was seeking to gain vacant possession of the site after the garda leases there expired earlier this year.
The OPW, the state landlord, took a court action earlier this year, however, seeking to extend the lease. At the time, Hibernia said it believed it would prevail in the court action and that Harcourt Square was “an excellent development opportunity”.
Hibernia later took a separate court action to access the common areas of the complex in order to start its development work.
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In its interim results last month, the company said that the court cases were expected to be heard in early 2017.
It is understood the sides have been in talks in recent weeks and are close to announcing an agreement. The terms of the deal are not known, but are likely to be attractive to Hibernia, which is effectively agreeing to stall development of Harcourt Square until after 2022.
The company has several other projects in the pipeline, including the development of five adjacent properties in the south docklands in Dublin. The sites have almost 34,500 sq metres of office space either in place or under construction.
Hibernia has 28 properties in total, both commercial and residential, and is valued at more than €1bn.