Developer Cotter seeks €155m for Docklands office block
DEVELOPER Michael Cotter will be hoping to tap the flow of international investment into Dublin’s office sector with the official launch to the market today of the Reflector building for a guide price of €155m.
News of the proposed sale comes a week after the Irish Independent report that South Korean-based investment fund Vestas Management completed the first ‘mega deal’ (value in excess of €100m) of 2019 with its acquisition of the Charlemont Exchange office scheme from Pat Crean’s Marlet Property Group for €150m.
The Reflector building is expected to be the subject of highly-competitive bidding among a range of investors from Europe and beyond.
While the property is being formally brought to the market today, market sources told this newspaper last night that upwards of 20 parties have expressed their interest in acquiring it, notwithstanding the ongoing uncertainty over Brexit.
The Reflector building, at Hanover Quay in Grand Canal Dock, is being marketed by joint selling agents Savills Ireland and CBRE, with the benefit of annual rental income of around €7m, generated from a strong tenant mix including Airbnb, Wix and LogMeIn.
Completed by Michael Cotter’s Park Developments in 2018, the six-storey over-basement building extends to 11,250 sq m of office space and 329 sq m of retail space, with 34 car parking spaces.
Its delivery marked the return of the veteran builder to Grand Canal Dock following an absence of more than a decade. In 2005, Park Developments teamed up with John Sisk & Son to build a major residential scheme on the corner of Hanover Quay and Grand Canal Square, which served to kick-start the regeneration of the South Docks. Today, Grand Canal Dock is one of central Dublin’s foremost business districts with major national and multinational companies – including, Accenture, Airbnb, Facebook, Google, Twitter and LinkedIn – located there.
Elsewhere in Dublin, a wide range of investors and developers are expected to bid for DIT’s former Kevin Street campus, which is also being brought to the market today. Distributed across a 3.57-acre site, it’s being marketed by selling agent Knight Frank as an opportunity to deliver a “unique mixed-use development” of 53,600 sq m (576,945 sq ft) comprising offices, residential and a hotel subject to planning permission.