RetailInvestment: The first prime retail investment to come on the market in Dublin this year - number 33 Exchequer Street, Dublin 2 - may well set the tone for the investment market this spring when it goes for sale by private treaty through Hamilton Osborne King.

The agency is asking €2.75 million for the building but, given the pent-up demand for investment properties in the area, it seems unlikely that it will change hands for anything under €3 million.

The sale will be closely watched because at least three other investment buildings in the same area are due to go for sale in the coming weeks.

Number 33 Exchequer Street is a self-contained, own-door four-storey over basement period building with a net internal floor area of 233sq m (2,508sq ft).

The entire space is let to Rio Coffee Company on a 35-year full repairing and insuring lease from 1991, leaving an unexpired term of 20 years. The current rent of €66,000, set four years ago, is a long way behind the going rate in the area and is set to rise sharply when it is reviewed next October.

Exchequer Street, like some of the other side streets in the area, has had something of a renaissance in recent years because of the revival of South Great George's Street and the increasing tendency of traders to move from the high rents of Grafton Street to cheaper premises in adjoining streets.

The opening of a large number of new restaurants and bars has also led to a lively night life that is seen as a safer alternative to the more boisterous Temple Bar.

Exchequer Street is to get a further boost in the coming weeks when a large new food hall opens in a former telephone exchange, one of the largest buildings on the street.

Cormac Dunne of Hamilton Osborne King, who is handling the sale of number 33, says the building will give purchasers an opportunity to acquire a highly reversionary, long term secure income in one of the prime retailing pitches beside Grafton Street.