Sean Dunne pays €53m for docklands site

A top infill site of 1.15 acres in the fast-changing south docklands may accommodate a large office scheme and some social and affordable residential units, writes Jack Fagan

The property developer Sean Dunne has bought another high profile site in the popular south Dublin docklands.

He is understood to have paid €53 million for a site of 1.15 acres fronting onto Sir John Rogerson's Quay and next to his recently completed office complex which is mainly occupied by the legal firm, Matheson Ormsby Prentice (MOP).

Dunne's company, Mountbrook Homes, beat Liam Carroll's Danninger company for the infill site which accommodates a warehouse and is owned by a Canadian trust.

Carroll had been anxious to enlarge the adjoining four-acre Hammond Lane site which has been earmarked for a substantial office scheme.

Dunne could be expected to get planning permission for an office block of up to 14,804sq m (160,000sq ft) on the newly acquired site.

However, it also affords him the opportunity to use part of it for social and affordable residential units as an alternative venue to the planned mixed-use development on the Jurys Doyle hotel site in the centre of Ballsbridge. Both locations are in the Dublin south-east constituency.

Dunne also owns an adjoining half-acre site off Sir John Rogerson's Quay where he is due to to begin construction in the next two months on a development of 56 apartments.

His success in attracting one of the top legal firms, MOP, to his Riverside IV office scheme was one of the highlights of the Dublin office market last year. The tenant is paying what was then a top rent of €565 per sq m (€52.50 per sq ft) for 12,355sq m (133,000sq ft) in the main block in the complex.

Even before the firm moved in, the investment was sold on to Irish Life at a yield of 3.75 per cent in part exchange for the Hume House office block adjoining Jurys hotel on Pembroke Road.

Letting agent, CB Richard Ellis, is in negotiations with several leading companies to let two smaller office blocks developed by Dunne beside the MOP building which are expected to rent at €645 per sq m (€60 per sq ft).

A six-storey block of 5,574sq m (60,000sq ft) is already completed and another one of 7,432sq m (80,000sq ft) will be ready for fit-out before the end of the year.