AA IRELAND is looking for a new Dublin headquarters to accommodate 360 staff based in the city. The long established organisation also has another 120 employees operating elsewhere in the country.

The Dublin staff are spread over four buildings – a walk in office and shop on Drury Street; College House in South Frederick Street and two buildings on South William Street, Maryland House at numbers 20 and 21, where it occupies four floors, and number 60 where it rents two further floors.

The Drury Street shop may be retained because of its convenience and for that reason the new headquarters does not necessarily have to have a shop front.

The AA sold its previous headquarters on Suffolk Street at the peak of the property boom in 2005 for over €8 million – almost 50 per cent more than the guide price.

Conor Faughnan, director of policy at the AA, said the Suffolk Street headquarters was a wonderful building but they had outgrown it.

“It was a very satisfactory sale price and it enabled us to invest that amount and more back into the business.”

The organisation has now engaged Paddy Conlon of agent CBRE to find a good quality office building with a floor area of 2,787 to 3,251sq m (30,000/35,000 sq ft).

“We have an open mind about location,” says Faughnan, “but because of the nature of our business we are likely to favour a city centre location.”

With Aviva preparing to run down its Irish operation, the AA is rapidly growing its business on all fronts. It has over 200,000 customers for home, motor and travel insurance. Its roadside rescue patrols are now attending about 140,000 breakdowns a year.

“We have launched a new home emergency response service, so we are now repairing houses as well as cars,” says Faughnan. “We have invested heavily in IT systems in recent years and it is paying off. We added 40 new jobs in Dublin city centre last year.”

Faughnan says people might think that office space was easy to find in Dublin these days but it is not as simple as that. The AA has particular needs and requires modern facilities for what has become a very large team.

“We operate 24/7 every day of the year and that has challenges too. We have to have back-up facilities, including a back-up independent electricity supply. We host well in excess of half a million customer data records which is a serious responsibility. With those criteria, suitable premises are far harder to find.”