Merrion Row restaurant building for sale for €1m

Eto building in Dublin 2 includes three floors over a basement on the busy city street

A selling price of more than €1 million would show an initial yield of 5.75 per cent.
A selling price of more than €1 million would show an initial yield of 5.75 per cent.

Estate agent Finnegan Menton is seeking in excess of €1 million for a particularly well-located restaurant and office building half way between the Shelbourne and Merrion hotels at 18 Merrion Row, Dublin 2.

The ground floor and basement extend to 86sq m (930sq ft) and are let to the award-winning restaurant Eto while the three upper floors with a further 125sq m (1,350sq ft) are rented by Ben O'Rafferty solicitors. The restaurant owners, Liz O'Mahony and Simon Barrett, have entered into a new 25-year lease, which will commence on the expiry of the old lease this March at a rent of €40,000 per annum.

Ben O'Reilly solicitors is over holding on an old 35-year lease, which expired a number of years ago at a rent of €20,000 per annum – the equivalent of €15 per sq ft. While the tenant has rights to a new lease, one has not to date been entered into. Nicholas Corson of Finnegan Menton says, "There is obvious reversionary potential in the low passing rent." A selling price of more than €1 million would show an initial yield of 5.75 per cent, increasing on renewal of the upper floors lease to more than 6.5 per cent.

Jack Fagan

Jack Fagan

Jack Fagan is the former commercial-property editor of The Irish Times