Just grand! Big names flock to the canalside

Zendesk has still to decide whether to retain its current space or to move its entire staff to the new building.

Rohan Holdings’ 21 Charlemont is complete and available for letting with a guide price of €592 per sq m. The 3,400 sq m building has six floors and a basement. The building has attracted a lot of interest, said Deirdre Costello, director of office agency at JLL, joint agent with Knight Frank. “We’re talking to a number of people at the moment. It looks great and it’s one of the only buildings where there’s still space available.”

Development beside the canal is not confined to offices. Construction is under way on the Clayton Hotel Charlemont, a 180-bed four-star hotel on the Charlemont Clinic site, which was bought for €11.9m in February 2016 by Dalata, Ireland’s largest hotel operator, which runs Clayton Hotels.

The development is at the basement stage and is expected to be completed by October. The €28m project will also incorporate a number of Georgian buildings, including St Ultan’s Hospital, which will house luxury suites and conference facilities.

Up the street at Tom Kelly Road flats, work is under way on 75 social-housing apartments being developed by McGarrell Reilly for Dublin city council as part of a public-private partnership.

The block is due to be handed over to the council by the end of the year. Work will then start on the rest of the scheme, which includes 184 private apartments and two commercial blocks, comprising 19,500 sq m of offices and nearly 3,000 sq m of shops.

“The aim is that the whole scheme will be finished by the end of 2019 or the start of 2020,” said Andrew Cunningham, head of offices at real estate firm Savills.

On the same street is Charlemont Exchange, the former headquarters of ACC and subsequently Rabobank, which was bought by Patrick Crean’s Marlet Property Group last year.

Planning permission was granted recently to add two floors to two of the blocks and one floor to the third block. Work has started and about 8,500 sq m of office space is expected to be delivered early next year.

On the opposite bank of the canal, at Two Grand Parade, a planning application has been made to refurbish the former Carroll’s Tobacco Group building, which dates from the early 1960s and is a protected structure; it was the headquarters of the Irish Nationwide Building Society. The proposal, which is at the additional information stage, includes a six-storey extension, which would link to the original building via a glazed atrium. The plan proposes 15,000 sq m of floorspace between the new and existing parts of the scheme.

Real estate company Hines Ireland, along with Hong Kong-based property investment firm Peterson Group, bought the building and 0.7-hectare site from London and Regional this year. It is let on a short-term basis to online retailer Amazon. According to Hines, construction will start in early 2018 with completion scheduled for mid 2019.

Davy has just been granted permission to refurbish 43-49 Mespil Road, to include a six-level extension at the back to provide an extra 960 sq m of floorspace. In all, the refurbished building will have more than 5,300 sq m of office space.

Back on the city side of the canal, one of the biggest changes coming down the line will be the demolition of Iput-owned Fitzwilton House to make way for One Wilton, an eight-storey block with 14,000 sq m of office space. The project is at detailed design phase and work on site is expected to begin this year.

Around the corner from One Wilton is Wilton Park House, which has been fully owned by Iput since last year and is occupied by inward-investment agency IDA Ireland. That lease is due to expire in 2019 and IDA is looking for a new home.

Iput is likely to refurbish or redevelop the 13,270 sq m building if and when it becomes vacant.

Next door is Wilton Place, LinkedIn’s headquarters for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, which has been built beside the Wilton Plaza office, which the business social networking site uses at present. The block has an overall floor area of 17,650 sq m across six storeys.

At the corner of Wilton Terrace and Baggot Street, Irish Life has put in an application to redevelop the former Bord Failte headquarters. It is proposing to demolish the five-storey 2,300 sq m block and replace it with a six-storey 7,000 sq m building.

Also slated for development is Hibernia Reit’s Clanwilliam Court on the corner of Mount Street and Clanwilliam Place. The Reit owns four adjoining blocks — comprising 12,500 sq m of office space — out of the seven that make up Clanwilliam Court. All leases on the blocks are due to expire by the end of 2021, at which stage Hibernia is expected to refurbish or redevelop.

As a location, the stretch along Grand Canal is acceptable and even appealing for many occupiers but it may not be for everyone, according to Shane Duffy, director at BNP Paribas Real Estate.

“If you want absolute grade A, best- in-class location, it’s probably a compromise. But if you want something that’s not necessarily at the rents [of the central business district] around St Stephen’s Green and its hinterland, then I think this would be more than acceptable.”

Staying in the immediate area was a priority for Zendesk when it was looking for office space. “Zendesk loves the Grand Canal and wanted to stay in that location,” said Cunningham.

“It’s accessible with the Luas and has a pleasant environment.”