One of Ireland's most colourful developers, Pat Doherty, has pulled off the coup of the year by buying a large tract of land adjoining City West, Dublin's most fashionable business park. The owners of City West, Davy Hickey Properties, were always expected to snap up the 100-acres, particularly as 20 acres of it is already zoned for commercial use, but at the last moment Doherty nipped in and clinched a deal at £20 million with the truck importer Pino Harris.

Doherty's cherry picking expedition will come as quite a shock to the promoters of City West, who have been extremely successful in attracting international and domestic companies to the 300-acre park on both sides of the Naas dual carriageway. The directors of Davy Hickey include the low profile trio of David Shubotham, Kyran McLaughlin and Brendan Hickey, who are seldom caught on the wrong side of a deal.

Doherty remained coy this week about his plans to move into his rival's territory at City West. "It's a nice complex, we'll take a closer look at it." His company, Harcourt Holdings, has also tasted the fruits of success over the past few years with its Park West business park, on the edge of the M50, where he is building no less than 34 office blocks for high-tech companies. His strategy of offering space to rent at about half the level in the city centre has paid off. Broadcaster Mike Murphy will also be focusing on it, as one of the directors of Harcourt Holdings, now that he is cutting back on his RTE activities.