Developer Crean buys Apollo House in Dublin for more than €50m

The site of the former Apollo House building in Dublin's city centre has been sold to Pat Crean & Partners for more than €50 million.

This was substantially higher than the asking price of €40 million for the 0.72-acre site, according to the estate agent that handled the sale. Demolition of the former Apollo House, which was occupied in 2016 by groups protesting about the homelessness crisis in Ireland, has already taken place.

The Tara Street site comes with planning permission for a 10-storey over-basement office building, which will include ground floor retail, cafe, bar and restaurant units. It will also include 40 car parking spaces and 166 bicycle stands.

The sale was handled by Savills Ireland on the instructions of Simon Coyle and Tom O'Brien of Mazars. Mr Crean is a leading Irish property developer, better known for his involvement with Marlet Property Group.

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Along with the neighbouring former Department of Health building, at Hawkins House, the Apollo House development is likely to see the creation of a new "mid-town" area in Dublin city centre over the next five years.

Tower

Developer Johnny Ronan has separate plans to develop a 22-storey tower across the road beside the Dart station although his initial proposals were rejected by Dublin City Council and have been appealed to An Bord Pleanála.

"Given the fact this is one of the few sites with development potential remaining in Dublin's CBD [central business district], it was no surprise that demand from a variety of buyers was strong, which ultimately led to a very expedient sales process," Savills Ireland's director of development and consultancy, Mark Reynolds, said.

He added that there was “still strong demand in Dublin for quality office stock in good locations”.

In the past two years, office-based employment in Dublin has risen by 8 per cent, with an additional 18,800 office-based jobs created in that time.

As a result, financial services, professional and technical services, information and communications technology and public and private administration now account for almost 37 per cent of all jobs in the capital.