Property developer Seán Dunne has significantly increased the footprint of his portfolio in Ballsbridge with a deal to acquire the Hume House office block adjoining the Jurys Hotel complex on Pembroke Road. Arthur Beesley, Senior Business Correspondent, reports.

Mr Dunne secured ownership of the 80,000 sq ft building by way of a "swap" agreed last week with the Irish Life Irish Property Fund. It is unclear whether any significant sum of money will change hands as a result of the transaction, which has yet to close.

In return for Hume House, the Irish Life fund will receive a considerably larger office block of 133,000 sq ft that Mr Dunne's company, Mountbrook Homes, is building at on the banks of the Liffey in the Grand Canal Docks area. Legal firm Matheson Ormsby Prentice (MOP) will lease that building for 25 years with an option to extend for 10 years.

While the precise details of the transaction have not been made public, the deal between Mr Dunne and Irish Life is understood to value each building at about €130 million.

Hume House sits on about two-thirds of an acre, implying a valuation of some €195 million per acre at the site, yet another record for property in Ballsbridge.

The deal significantly adds to the landbank that Mr Dunne is amassing in Ballsbridge through his purchase of the Jurys, Berkeley Court and Towers hotels.

Mr Dunne bought those sites last year at a total cost of €380 million. He plans to build a high-rise mixed-used development there that would be akin to a "Knightsbridge of Dublin".

The Irish Life fund will take the benefit in the future of the strong leasehold on the Riverside IV building with MOP, which is considered a prime tenant.

An Irish Life spokesman would not discuss the deal but said that a 3 per cent increase in the fund's value at the start August "was linked to a transaction that took place in the fund".