US computer maker HP Inc has put its 195-acre Liffey Park Technology Campus in Co Kildare up for sale in what will be one of the largest ever trades of an industrial facility here.
The asking price has not been disclosed but property sources expect it to sell for more than €50 million.
Estate agent CBRE has been engaged to sell the campus, which is split into nine main buildings, of which six are dedicated to high-quality manufacturing, clean room, warehouse and office use. The remaining buildings are used for ancillary and backup uses such as energy centres and canteens.
The campus was developed by US computer maker Hewlett Packard in the mid-1990s but the group has since been restructured, with HP Inc and Hewlett Packard Enterprise splitting from each other in late 2015.
HP Inc is the personal computer and printer division, while Hewlett Packard Enterprise operates the cloud computing and software business.
Earlier this year, HP Inc announced that it was cutting almost 500 jobs at the Kildare campus and closing its global print business in Leixlip. Hewlett Packard Enterprise was unaffected by that decision and continues to be located at the Leixlip site.
Development potential
The overall facility has a gross floor area of about 1.46 million sq ft, including 70 acres of undeveloped land that offers development potential for a new owner.
It is currently achieving a gross rent of €3.8 million a year on short to medium-term leases covering about 35 per cent of the building area. This creates the scope to increase the rent roll going forward.
The lands, which are located directly off the M4 motorway linking Dublin to Galway, are predominately zoned for industrial and warehousing under the Kildare Development Plan 2011 - 2017. This zoning is expected to remain in situ under the revised plan out to 2023.
CBRE expects interest from a variety of occupiers and investors given the scale, quality and flexibility of the site. Services on the campus include an existing 16 MVA (mega volt amp) electrical supply serving an onsite 110kV (kilo volts) sub-station, which could make it attractive to data centre operators.
CBRE executive director Willie Norse described it as a "unique opportunity" to acquire a large manufacturing campus with significant existing buildings and major infrastructure in place.
"It will represent one of the largest industrial and indeed overall property disposals in Ireland in recent years," he said. "This high tech manufacturing complex represents an economic opportunity for large scale end-users to secure a commercial industrial/manufacturing facility at a fraction of reinstatement value, or alternatively for investors who would seek to lease out the entire campus, thereby generating a significant rent roll."
