Six bidders on shortlist to build new Central Bank on former Anglo site

The Central Bank

has selected a six-strong shortlist of building firms to bid for the €80 million contract to build its new headquarters on Dublin’s north docks.

The six bidders are building groups Sisk, Bennett Construction, John Paul Construction, PJ Hegarty & Sons, BAM and Walls Construction.

On a site once earmarked for the former Anglo Irish Bank it will be one of the largest construction jobs begun since the financial crisis began in 2008. An original list of 11 Irish and international contractors bid for the project before these were whittled down recently.

March target

The Central Bank is expected to have picked its preferred contractor by December 19th and it has set a target of March 2015 for contractors to be on site.

The Central Bank hopes to have finished the building by in 2016 and it will then relocate its staff out of it current headquarters on Dame Street, and other locations.

About 350 construction jobs will be needed to work on the 22,500sq m docklands building, designed by Henry J Lyons.

The Central Bank has already selected Architectural Aluminium to build a high-tech eco-facade for the building at a cost of about €15 million.

Consulting engineers O’Connor Sutton Cronin and structural engineers Aecom are also working on the project with planners Tom Phillips Associates.

Three additional contracts for security, catering and landscape are believed to be still being put out for tender as the project finally begins to edge closer to completion.

John Mulcahy, the former head of asset management at the National Asset Management Agency, has described the existing Anglo shell along the river Liffey as like “a burnt-out tank on the road to Kuwait”.