A round-up of today's other stories in brief

Specsavers for Swords

FAST-EXPANDING franchise Specsavers is opening a new store at Swords Central in north Dublin. The company is likely to be paying a staggered rent of up to €95,000 for a shop of 148sq m (1,593 sq ft) close to a unit recently taken over by An Post. Another retailer committed to opening in Swords Central is The Gift Magnet which is renting a 140sq m (1,500sq ft) shop. Swords Central forms part of a retail complex occupied by Penneys which links in to The Pavilions shopping centre. Louise Donnelly of letting agent DTZ Sherry FitzGerald said the latest tenants signing up would greatly strengthen the footfall in the centre where there were a number of units still available.

€820,000 for Waterford bar 

OSKAR’S BAR, a licensed premises built seven years ago on the Dunmore Road in Waterford city, is going on the market with a guide price of €820,000. Des Purcell of Purcell Auctioneers says Oskar’s bar is in the most populated area of the South East, less than 1km from Waterford Regional Hospital which has 1,700 employees. The bar forms part of the Brasscock Centre where retail facilities include a Londis store. The two-storey building has a 278sq m (3,000sq ft) ground floor lounge/bar, similar facilities upstairs, a dining area, kitchen and stores.

Irish agent gets top UK job

Fergus Keane, one of the key Irish-born commercial property agents in London, is leaving CB Richard Ellis to join DTZ as head of investments in the city’s West End. Keane, whose father and uncle were associated with agents Keane Mahony Smith in Ireland, spent five years in London with DTZ before returning to Dublin in 2003 to work for Hamilton Osborne King, now trading as Savills. Since joining CBRE in London in 2006, he has handled property transactions with a value of €1.56 billion. Almost 50 per cent of those properties were either acquired or sold by Irish investors.