Office park down from €312m to €35m

Nama has finally moved to offload the heavily indebted Millennium Park in Naas, Co Kildare, which was one of the biggest deals of the property boom, costing €312 million for 417 acres.

Various parts of the park have been developed or sold since the mammoth deal in 2006, but with land values now in a different league, 333 acres – including almost 30 acres already developed – are now going for sale for €35 million.

Mark Smyth of CBRE is to handle the sale of the park including the office buildings, which produce a rental income of €1.6 million.

Discount

The original funding for the Naas project was made available to developers

Gerry Prendergast

,

Tom Considine

and

Paddy Sweeney

by

AIB

, Irish Nationwide and

Anglo Irish Bank

. The loans were subsequently transferred to Nama at a discount.

The location of the park, on the north-western edge of Naas town centre and with improved accessibility to Dublin city, Dublin Airport and the M50, has broadened its appeal to companies looking for out-of-town office and commercial facilities.

Already it has benefitted greatly from the ongoing development by the Kerry Group of a €100 million global technology and innovation centre which will employ 900 people when fully commissioned next year. The centre for scientific research and product development is located on a 28-acre site which was sold to the Kerry Group at about €180,000 per acre.

Separately there are six stand-alone buildings along with some own-door units extending to 14,353sq m (154,537sq ft) which have a rent roll of €1.6 million. Rents in the most recent lettings have increased to €129 per sq m (€12 per sq ft).

Office tenants include State Street Bank trading as IFS Ireland Ltd, the Office of Public Works, Horse Sports Ireland, Lidl, Oil Field Solutions, AIB, GEA Process Technologies and SGS Ireland.

There is scope to provide similar office and commercial facilities as well as residential units on the adjoining lands. There is also live planning permission for a petrol filling station adjacent to the new Kerry Group facility as well as a 100-bedroom care hospital and an office block with four retail units. Already, the Tullamore-based Capital Securities is building houses on a 15-acre division of the former Oldtown Demesne which it bought for €5.5 million.

CBRE says that the buildings included in the sale are 98 per cent occupied, testament to their good design and fitout and their flexibility to large and small requirements. The specifications include raised access floors, suspended ceilings, air conditioning and passenger lifts. Surface car parking is available alongside the various buildings.

Interchange

Millennium Park will also benefit from the granting of planning permission for a new motorway (M7) interchange with direct access to the Naas Western Distributor Road including the business park, says CBRE. It is envisaged that the interchange can be delivered within two years.

The land bank adjacent to the M7 includes 103 acres of agricultural land with development potential providing it is rezoned. The balance of the lands south of the M7, running to around 230 acres, has six different zonings including enterprise and employment, community and education, urban village and new residential zoned.

Smyth said he was confident the land bank would generate interest locally as well as internationally and would probably involve international parties creating partnerships with local developers and investors.