ACC Bank to sell offices for £8m-plus

ACC Bank is to offer its Dublin headquarters building for sale early in the new year following the purchase of a £17 million office complex at Charlemont Street, Dublin 2. The Gunne agency expects to secure in excess of £8 million at tender for the Hatch Street block, which is likely to be of interest to investors and owner-occupiers. Willy Dowling of the agency says the building would also be suitable for conversion into a 140bedroom hotel or possibly apartments. There is on-site parking for 90 cars.

The 50,000-square-foot building was completed for ACC in 1973. ACC is also renting about 13,000 square feet of space in the nearby Harcourt Centre.

The Government is expected to decide on the future role of ACC, ICC and the Trustee Savings Bank. A proposed merger between the three banks was not proceeded with by the Fine Gael-Labour Coalition.

Incidentally, TSB is also moving to a new headquarters building in Blackrock, Co Dublin, where it will be paying around £16 per square foot for a 30,000-squarefoot block known as Carysfort Court.

The management and staff of ACC Bank are due to move next autumn to three interconnecting blocks with about 70,000 square feet, which are currently under construction in Charlemont Exchange.

ACC opted to purchase the complex rather than pay a rent of £1.37 million per annum - equating to £18 per square foot and £1,250 for each of the 90 car-parking spaces. The office development is located directly opposite The Barge pub on Charlemont Street. It is also beside the newly opened 195bedroom Stakis Dublin International Hotel. Cosgrave Homes have completed and sold a large apartment scheme on the remainder of the 4.5-acre site, which was assembled over many years by Albert Holdings, a company controlled by the London-based Irish businessman J. A. Murphy.

Whoever buys ACC's fivestorey Hatch Street block will undoubtedly refurbish it and provide an additional 10,000 square feet of floor space at penthouse level. If the accommodation is brought up to the standard of a third-generation office block, it would attract rents of at least £18 per square foot.

A good indication of commercial values in the Hatch Street area was provided last March when Hardwicke paid £6.2 million at auction for an office site of three-quarters of an acre.

It has frontage on to both Upper Hatch Street and Adelaide Road. The price was the highest paid for a commercial site - equating to £8.25 million per acre.