Fidelity puts its faith in Dublin 2 offices

In the largest office letting so far in Dublin this year, investment and retirement experts Fidelity International has signed two leases to rent 6,317sq m (68,000sq ft) in the high-profile George's Quay House in Dublin 2, opposite the Custom House. Both leases will be at a rent of €527 a square metre (€49 a square foot).

The office deal is the largest handled by owners Green Reit, who acquired the 60,400sq m (650,000sq ft) office buildings at George's Quay and George's Court from the Cosgrave Property Group in June 2014 for €375 million. The so-called Sapphire Portfolio also included 27,900sq m (300,000sq ft) of retail and other commercial space at WestEnd Retail Park in Blanchardstown, Dublin 15.

Fidelity International will move next month into 2,462sq m (26,500 sq ft) in the former offices of Royal Bank of Canada, which has relocated to nearby George's Quay Plaza, also owned by Green Reit.

Fidelity has also completed contracts to lease a further 3,855sq m (41,500sq ft) of space being vacated later this year by Invesco and Twitter. Invesco has already sublet much of its space to Twitter.

Twitter will be moving towards the end of the year into Cumberland House on Fenian Street, where it is to pay €538 a square metre (€50 a square foot) for four floors. Hibernia Reit paid a surprisingly high price of €49m for the dated building and is spending a further €27m modernising it.

Fidelity International is a global investment business with offices in 24 countries serving clients across Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and South Africa.

Ronan Webster, asset management director of Green Property Reit Ventures, said they were delighted to have secured Fidelity International as tenants in George's Quay. With the letting to Fidelity and the retention of the Royal Bank of Canada within the George's Quay estate they would continue to keep occupancy at 100 per cent in one of Dublin's finest office locations.

Deirdre Costello of agents JLL is handling the letting in George's Quay House.

The lettings to Fidelity comes after JLL reported a 62 per cent increase in take-up in Dublin office space in the final quarter of the year. Take-up for the year reached 2.87 million square feet, a 25 per cent increase on 2014 and 40 per cent above the five-year average and the highest level of take-up in the market since 2007.

The report also showed 58 per cent of the deals were for space of less than 1038sq m (11,177sq ft) and 20 per cent of the lettings were for floor areas between 929sq m (10,000sq ft) and 1,858sq m (20,000sq ft).