St Stephen’s Green office with potential for landmark development seeks €27m

Purchaser of numbers 90 and 91 may look to acquire adjoining property for larger scheme

St Stephen’s Green’s long-standing status as the foremost location within Dublin’s traditional central business district and wider city centre is expected to produce strong interest in a Georgian investment which has been brought to the market by agent BNP Paribas Real Estate at a guide price of €27 million.

While numbers 90 and 91 St Stephen’s Green offer the prospective purchaser secure rental income until September 2021 and the opportunity to redevelop thereafter, interested parties may look to acquire the property with a view to delivering a more ambitious development involving the adjoining building. Numbers 92 and 93 St Stephen’s Green are on the market currently with Savills Ireland at a guide price of €18 million.

Were an individual buyer to secure ownership of numbers 90 through 93, they would have scope to deliver significant additional office accommodation to the rear of the existing buildings. While the owners of numbers 90 and 91 haven’t conducted an assessment of its precise redevelopment potential, a feasibility study prepared by RKD Architects for the vendors of numbers 92 and 93 suggest that it alone could accommodate a modern office extension of 4,676sq m (50,328sq ft) over six floors on the 0.2 acres to the rear of the existing structure.

90-91 St Stephen’s Green currently comprises a four-storey over lower-ground floor modern second-generation office building with a mid-terrace Georgian façade. Extended and redeveloped in the 1980s, the property extends to a net internal area of 2,470sq m (26,587sq ft) distributed over average floor plates of 493sq m (5,307sq ft).

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The central location of the building’s core allows for the floor plates to be split if required, providing flexibility for a landlord when marketing the offices. The building has 25 on-site car spaces at lower ground-floor level, with direct access off St Stephen’s Green, equating to a generous car park ratio of around 1:100sq m of office accommodation when compared to the modern city centre provision of 1:400sq m.

Standard Life currently occupy the entire property on 10-year lease expiring on September 15th, 2021 at a passing rent of €1.25 million per annum.

Commenting on the sale, Keith O’Neill, head of office agency at BNP Paribas Real Estate, said: “The existing lease with Standard Life provides for a deed of renunciation next September and this will facilitate vacant possession of the entire property with an opportunity for a successful purchaser to redevelop the subject property on its own, and possibly adding additional office space subject to planning permission. Should the purchaser acquire the adjoining properties at 92 and 93 St Stephen’s Green, this could allow for a larger redevelopment of the two properties.”

Numbers 90 and 91 St Stephen's Green are bounded to the south by the Iveagh Gardens, to the north by St Stephen's Green, and to the east and west by a range of blue-chip office occupiers including aircraft leasing specialist Aercap Holdings, US pharma giant Horizon Therapuetics, and the new headquarters of US real estate investment firm Kennedy Wilson at number 94.

Ronald Quinlan

Ronald Quinlan

Ronald Quinlan is Property Editor of The Irish Times