Another Ballsbridge site with potential for high rise apartments and offices is for sale for over €30m. Jack Faganreports.
Another redevelopment site in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, comes on the market today when the former Cablelink office building and an adjoining Edwardian house on Herbert Park go for sale by tender.
Robert Murphy of CB Richard Ellis is quoting in excess of €30 million for the two properties which stand on a combined site of 0.7 of an acre beside the Herbert Park Hotel.
They are being sold on behalf of a syndicate headed by property developers Paddy Kelly, John McCabe and John Walsh.
The two-storey office block at 10 Pembroke Place is currently let to AIB on a short-term lease while the large six-bedroom redbrick family home at 36 Herbert Park will be sold with vacant possession.
AIB is paying a rent of €514,144 for the office building under a four years and nine months lease from July, 2005. The bank has a break option after three years.
Developers with an interest in the well-located property will obviously be looking at the prospects of enlarging the site further by buying in two further homes at the end of Herbert Park which would probably bring the development area up to about 1.2 acres.
Even as things stand, new owners could expect to get planning permission for a high density office and apartment scheme given that the adjoining office, hotel and apartments in Herbert Park are generally seven storeys high.
And that was before the State came out in favour of more high rise buildings rather than a continuation of the present suburban sprawl.
While local councillors this week indicated that they will not be supporting a new draft area plan which would have allowed some high rise development and a rezoning of small areas from residential to retail use, it is questionable whether that policy will prevail in the end because of the strategic importance of this business and residential area and the vast sums of money invested in the site bounded by Pembroke, Landowne and Shelbourne Roads.
Several developers including businessmen Sean Dunne, Bernard McNamara, Gerry Kelly and Ray Grehan will inevitably hold out for some high rise tower blocks to replace redundant hotels and office buildings in Ballsbridge.
Dublin City Council will be under pressure to come up with a solution once the range of buildings along these roads become vacant in the coming months.
The Jurys Doyle Hotel Group has already given notice to its staff that it plans to close the Jurys, Towers and Berkeley Court hotels after the Dublin Horse show on 13th August.
