A business consortium which paid a record price for the former AA building on Dublin's Suffolk Street is now expected to rent the extended retail facility for around €450,000 per annum following the granting of planning permission for the conversion. Jack Fagan reports.
City planners have cleared the way for an extension which will increase the ground floor retail area to 190sq m (2,045sq ft) and add a mezzanine to the rear with another 110sq m (1,184sq ft).
The Dutch-style ornate cut-stone building will also have 310sq m (3,337sq ft) of ancillary space at basement, first, second and third floor levels. Redevelopment work on the building is expected to begin shortly and will take about four months to complete.
Agent Quinn Agnew is expecting strong interest in the building, mainly from multiple fashion traders unable to find a suitably large pitch on Grafton Street.
The building is just 50 yards off Grafton Street where traders have found it virtually impossible to rent a decent-sized outlet.
Suffolk Street has become one of the busiest streets in the city centre and, with many shoppers turning into the street as they leave Grafton Street, most of them pass the old AA building.
A much smaller proportion of the pedestrian traffic uses the opposite side of the street where Habitat opened a new store in a former banking hall last autumn. Avoca Handweavers has become an even more important anchor on the street where it trades out of four main levels.
The AA building was sold last April for just over €8 million - a long way ahead of the €4.5 million-plus guide price advised by Fergus Cross of College Properties.
The fortunes of Suffolk Street changed some years ago when the former Church of Ireland church on Andrew Street was converted into the city's main tourist office. This, in turn, helped to rejuvenate South William Street and other adjoining streets where many new restaurants and shops have opened in recent years.
It is generally expected that Dublin City Council will upgrade the various streets between Grafton Street and South Great George's Street in order to enlarge the prime shopping area of the city and to cater for the ever-increasing number of city shoppers.
