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large Dublin office building which has been vacant since it was completed in 2008 is to become the European headquarters for a California-based software company.
The Workday company has agreed to lease around half of the space in the Kings Building at the rear of the Four Courts on Church Street.
The letting will further reduce the fast dwindling supply of high-volume office space in the city centre where new construction ceased after the property crash and where only two new office developments are under way: in Ballsbridge and St Stephen’s Green.
Kings Building was built by a father and son team both named John Byrne. Mr Byrne, senior, who died last November at the age of 94, built many of the most notable office blocks in the city centre including O'Connell Bridge House and D'Olier House.
Extra jobs
He had a wide range of property in Ireland and the UK.
Workday is expected to create more than 200 extra jobs in Dublin where it already has a workforce of over 200.
The company established a European headquarters in Dublin in 2008 and subsequently took over the Irish-based Cape Clear, one of the last independent providers of web services integration technology.
Workday, now a rapidly expanding cloud-hosted human resources and finance software provider, raised $687 million when it was launched on the New York Stock Exchange in October 2012.
It was the second largest technology launch of the year, behind Facebook’s mammoth float, and was interpreted as a stock-market endorsement of cloud computing for the future of software.
Workday has been based at Fumbally Court near St Patrick’s Cathedral in Blackpitts, Dublin 8, and plans to move into Kings Building early next year, occupying the ground floor as well as the fourth, fifth and six levels.
The company will pay a rent of €269 per sq m (€25 per sq ft) for 7,896sq m (85,000sq ft) under a 10-year lease of the Kings Building which has an overall floor area of 16,631sq m (179,014sq ft).
The six-storey block is on a site between the offices of the Bar Council of Ireland and St Michan’s Church, on busy Church Street.
Roland O’Connell of letting agents Savills says that the air-conditioned block is one of the best finished buildings of its type in the city with a BER rating of B3 compared to other developments which would do well to achieve a rating of C3.
Naturally, this will ensure the building will be cost efficient to run.
Savills is also in negotiations to let another substantial part of the Kings Building which conveniently has two separate entrance lobbies.
Though the agency has not disclosed the name of the likely tenant it is understood to be the Office of Public Works which already leases several office blocks from Mr Byrne’s Carlisle Trust.
