Dublin's Harcourt Street looks set to get another hotel with the sale of a substantial block of Georgian-style houses at 72-74 to a group of investors. The new owners are also likely to consider office use after buying the investment through agents JLL.
They paid more than €18 million – €3 million above the guide – for the four-storey- over-basement block of houses which have an overall floor area of 3,251sq m (35,000 sq ft) and 50 car-parking spaces at ground and basement level.
The upper floors have clear views over the Iveagh Gardens to the rear.
The new owners are faced with further expenditure on the block irrespective of whether they opt for office use or for conversion to a small hotel.
A full-scale refurbishment of the building for office use could be expected to cost between €120 and €150 per square foot but would probably trigger a rent of about €484 per square metre (€45 per square foot).
The layout of the block would allow it to be multi-let. Floor plates are about 557sq m to 773sq m (6,000sq ft to 8,000sq ft), with smaller basement and penthouse levels suited to the current market. The market for floors of less than 929sq m (10,000sq ft) is the most active in Dublin 2 – more than 64 per cent of the deals in the past year were in this category.
