B of I plans to take space in £60m offices to replace Pelican House

Less than four years after vacating three office buildings in Dublin as part of a rationalisation plan, Bank of Ireland is expanding again with plans to rent a large new building shortly to be developed at Mespil Road in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. The bank will be paying about £30 per sq ft for 102,000 sq ft in one block of a large office complex which will extend into Burlington Road.

The development, likely to cost up to £60 million, is to be carried out by a business consortium headed by Bracadale, a company controlled by John Ronan and Richard Barrett.

The scheme will involve the demolition of Pelican House, a 40,000 sq ft office block on Mespil Road which was formerly used as a headquarters for Irish Life. It was subsequently leased to the Blood Transfusion Board, and the freehold formed part of a £50 million portfolio acquired about five years ago by Castlemarket Holdings, a joint venture company between Treasury Holdings and Jermyn Plc.

Last month, Dublin Corporation granted planning permission for two interlinking seven-storey blocks on Mespil Road and Burlington Road with a gross area of 257,000 sq ft. The corporation said the permission included a provision for 4,563 sq ft for the blood board.

The development will include 115 car-parking spaces at double basement level and 222 bicycle spaces.

The Mespil Road section is to be occupied by Bank of Ireland Asset Management (BIAM), which will be relocating from its present offices on the opposite side of the canal at Fitzwilliam Place. Jim McMahon of BIAM said the company was not in a position to give details of the letting arrangement as legal documentation had not yet been completed. Construction of the building is due to start next month and completion is expected at the end of 2001.

The blood board is to move in May to a new headquarters in the grounds of St James's Hospital. The chief executive officer, Martin Hynes, refused to disclose if a premium was paid to the board for surrendering its lease of Pelican House. Part of the agreement, he said, was that the board would have a donor clinic of around 5,000 sq ft in the new building on Burlington Road. "Compensation will be taken into account when the rent is set." Mr Hynes said the board was also looking at opening a donor clinic on the north side of Dublin as well as basing staff in Ardee and Carlow.

The agents for the scheme, Finnegan Menton, will market the balance of the development which will have over 100,000 sq ft. Interest in the block is expected to be strong because of the high-spec fit out planned and the Dublin 4 address. The Burlington Road site has been owned by Mr Ronan since the 1960s.

As recently as 1996, Bank of Ireland offloaded three office blocks in Dublin and relocated staff as part of its cutbacks. It assigned its lease of 55,000 sq ft in the Earlsfort Centre to solicitors Arthur Cox. The building had been occupied by a subsidiary of the bank, Lifetime Assurance Company. A short time later, it sold the Bank of Ireland Finance building on Pembroke Road for £4.5 million. It was subsequently sold twice, the last time to developers Paddy Kelly and John Flynn for £10 million. The bank also sold the Irish Civil Service Building Society office fronting on to O'Connell Bridge. It was bought at £3.5 million by Treasury Holdings, which has secured planning for Manchester United to use it as a retail/restaurant outlet.

Last year, the bank moved the ICS Building Society staff into Mayor House, in the Dublin docklands, at a rent of £27.50 per sq ft.