LinkedIn confirms plan for massive campus in Dublin city centre

LinkedIn is set to establish a major European headquarter campus in Dublin city centre after agreeing a deal to pre-let the remaining 39,950sq m (430,000sq ft) of office space being developed by Irish property company Iput at its Wilton Park scheme.

The US tech giant’s decision provides it with the capacity to grow its current 1,200-strong Dublin employee headcount by more than 4,000 workers in the medium to long term.

The news of Iput’s pre-let of Two, Three and Four Wilton Park to LinkedIn on a 25-year lease with a term certain of 12 years comes just over two months after The Irish Times reported that discussions on a potential deal were under way between the parties.

Construction of the three blocks will begin this year and is targeted for delivery in 2023. The development of One Wilton Park, a 13,935sq m (150,000sq ft) building which was fully pre-let to LinkedIn in 2018, is already under way and scheduled for completion towards the end of this year.

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Completion

Commenting on the agreement of the deal, Iput's chief executive Niall Gaffney said: "We are proud to partner with LinkedIn, a global technology brand that shares our ambition to sustainably develop a new destination in Dublin's central business district. This major development will be a key driver of long-term returns for our shareholders. We are committing €350 million to the development of the Wilton Park estate which, on completion, will have a value of over €750 million."

Located immediately beside LinkedIn's existing European headquarter offices at Wilton Place, the Wilton Park estate comprises the former Fitzwilton House, Wilton Park House, Gardner House, Lad Lane Apartments and their associated public spaces, and includes a one-acre park on the banks of the Grand Canal.

Iput gradually acquired the four properties and adjacent sites over the past decade with a view to developing the quarter as a whole.

Self-contained campus

In September 2015, the company purchased the adjoining Lad Lane apartments for €10 million, while in November 2017, it acquired Gardner House from Kennedy Wilson. Iput had previously owned Gardner House, selling it to a consortium for €83 million in 2006. In 2014, Kennedy Wilson acquired the property for €45 million. Iput paid the US-headquartered real estate firm about €60 million to secure ownership of the building once again in 2017.

LinkedIn’s establishment of a self-contained campus for its EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa) operations is in keeping with the model being pursued by other major tech companies such as Facebook, Salesforce and Google.

Facebook is set to occupy a 65,000sq m (700,000sq ft) campus now being built on the site of AIB’s former Bankcentre headquarters in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, while the new European headquarters for Salesforce will take up between 39,950sq m (430,000sq ft) and 49,240sq m (530,000sq ft) of office space at Spencer Place, the mixed-use scheme Johnny Ronan’s Ronan Group Real Estate (RGRE) is developing in Dublin’s north docklands.

Google is set to dwarf its tech peers in terms of its Dublin presence however. The delivery of the company’s new 36,850sq m (396,660sq ft) office complex at Boland’s Quay will bring its overall footprint to one million sq ft of office space on Barrow Street and in the area surrounding Grand Canal Quay.