Sandyford high-tech offices planned

Green property Company is believed to be planning a large high-tech office scheme in south Dublin. The company is expected to seek planning permission shortly for a complex of around 300,000 sq ft on a four-acre site at Sandyford Industrial Estate, currently occupied by Alert Packaging.

Although neither company would give details of the scheme, it is thought likely that Green is buying most of the site and, in return, is building a new premises of about 30,000 sq ft for Alert at a cost of around £1 million. Development sites in Sandyford are now valued at between £1m and £1.5m per acre. The Green office scheme is likely to be six storeys high and will be aimed at high-tech companies engaged in either the computer industry or research and development. Colliers Jackson Stops advised Alert on the transaction.

With a shortage of space for high-tech businesses in south Dublin, it is expected that more companies based in Sandyford will look at the possibility of redeveloping their sites in order to cash in on the increased values in the area.

The planners apparently want future developments in the estate to be geared to computer companies rather than used as call centres, even though these enterprises have a high labour content. Meanwhile, Green Property has just received planning permission to develop a further 195,000 sq ft of retail space alongside Blanchardstown Town Centre. The development will be concentrated on the land to the western end of the shopping centre which was originally earmarked for a regional technical college.

The units will vary in size from 5,000 sq ft to 35,000 sq ft and are all virtually pre-let at rents of £13£17.50 per sq ft. The first phase of the scheme, which opened last November, attracted a strong line of tenants, including PC World, Currys and Sports Division.

Green is currently developing a bar, a video shop and a first-floor restaurant adjacent to the McDonalds drive-through restaurant beside the town centre. The 10,000 sq ft pub, the first in the town centre, is to be rented by a leading Dublin publican. At the end of this year, Green is to embark on a major upgrading of the ACC Bank headquarters building at Hatch Street, Dublin 2, after buying it for £12 million. The company is expected to spend around £6 million on modernising and extending the block, which has a floor area of over 51,000 sq ft.