A round-up of today's other commercial property stories in brief

Irish investor pays over €8.5m for London investment

An Irish investor has paid over £6.5 million (over €8.5 million) for a retail and office investment at 96-97 Jermyn Street in the West End of London. The property comprises two adjoining buildings which have been integrated at ground and basement levels to accommodate shirt makers Harvie & Hudson. The deal will show a reversionary yield of almost 7 per cent within 12 to 18 months, according to Rod Hayler of Colliers Jackson-Stops. The upper floors of the buildings provide refurbished offices let to a variety of small companies but also providing administrative offices for the noted Conrans Restaurant which is located nearby. The new owner plans to refurbish a vacant floor of offices in the short term.

Sharp increase in new office space

New figures from Lisney show that 252,543sq m (2.718 million sq ft) of new office space was completed in Dublin during 2007 - an increase of 130 per cent on the 109,662sq m (1.18 million sq ft) built the previous year. Looking ahead, there is currently 454,559sq m (4.892 million sq ft) of Dublin offices under construction. All of this is due to be delivered by mid 2009, with 314,384sq m (3.384 million sq ft) scheduled for completion this year. This implies a further 24 per cent growth in office output this year.

Dr John McCartney, head of research at Lisney, said that all in all it seemed that developers remained confident of finding occupiers for good quality office space. This was indicated by the fact that 76 per cent of the 2007 output was built on a speculative rather than a pre-let basis.

€550 per sq m rent at IFSC

Colliers Jackson-Stops is seeking a replacement tenant for the second floor of La Touche House in Dublin's IFSC following the decision by Pfizer to relocate to the long vacant Watermarque Building beside Shelbourne greyhound track in Dublin 4. The 574sq m (6,178sq ft) in the La Touche block is held under a 25-year lease from 1993 at a rent of €550 per sq m (€51 per sq ft). The tenant has the right to break the lease in January, 2011 without a rental penalty. There are nine car-parking spaces available at a rent of €3,500 per annum for each one.