Sale of restored 18th-century office block offers room for higher rents

A fully let 18th-century office building and a modern extension with scope to increase the rent roll quite substantially goes for sale on Saturday by private treaty in Dublin’s south inner city.

Michele McGarry of Colliers International is guiding €8 million for the Adelaide Chambers on Peter Street, once the centrepiece of the former Adelaide Hospital, which now backs on to an upmarket development of 175 apartments. The office element is being offered for sale on the instructions of BDO, receiver to Benton Property Holdings.

The four-storey, over-basement office block has a net internal area of 1,643sq m (17,670sq ft) and a generous car parking provision of 31 basement spaces. The building is multi-tenanted, producing a rent roll of €293,000, with 67 per cent of this coming from the four main tenants: Sebela Pharmaceuticals, Decawave, Abakus Outsource and the HSE.

More importantly, the average rent equates to only €17.31/sq ft, substantially below the market rate of at least €30/sq ft. Similarly, individual car parking spaces should now be averaging at least €3,000 in inner city areas such as Peter Street.

Dublin church turned office building guiding €2.9m

---

Avestus to launch Richmond Homes brand with 25 houses in D7

---

Green Property optimistic about Irish Brexit opportunities

---

NI property firm buys nine office blocks in Scotland for £35m

---

The bottom line is that the various asset management opportunities available to new purchasers should allow the overall rent to be increased quite dramatically from €293,000 to no less than €600,000.

On top of all this, Colliers’ €8 million guide price breaks back to a capital value of €452/sq ft, an attractive valuation given that recent Georgian sales on Fitzwilliam Square and Merrion Square have ranged around €700/sq ft.

Adelaide Chambers was refurbished and extended in or around 2000. The modern office extension has retained the scale and vertical proportion of the original building and was constructed with a contemporary curtain wall designed to echo the original fenestration. A new staircase is one of the most striking features, protected by a sheer “futurewall” glazing.

The original Adelaide hospital was bought by Sean Kelly’s Benton company in 1998 for €7.87 million. The 175 apartments he developed onsite are among the most sought after in the south inner city.