A new price level for a retail leasehold interest may well be set next month when the former Makulla's fashion shop at 11-13 Suffolk Street, Dublin 2, is offered for sale by tender.

Joint agents Hamilton Osborne King and Douglas Newman Good are quoting a guideline price of over £500,000 for the lease of the building, which is located a short distance off Grafton Street.

The previous highest premium achieved in the city was the £425,000 paid by Racing Green for the former Dunkin' Donuts store on Grafton Street. Even if the agents secure £500,000 for the Suffolk Street premises, it will still be over £200,000 less than was paid for it last year by businessman Hugh O'Regan of the Thomas Read bar group. He is now selling on the lease after failing to get planning permission to convert it into a mixed pub and fashion outlet.

Mr O'Regan's innovative plans for the building would have involved the space being used as a retail unit during the day and a licensed premises after 6 p.m. The idea was inspired by shops-cum-pubs he saw in Spain and London and in his case, the plan was that by day the 9,000 sq ft building would be a large buzzing design centre selling all kinds of trendy designer gear. In the evenings it would change to become a pub attracting back the same youthful target market.

There are 1,965 sq ft on the ground floor and two further retail floors. The two upper floors are used as storage.

The building is held on a 35-year lease from 1993 at a rent of £155,000 per annum.

Larry Brennan of HOK says there should be strong interest in the building, given the immense shortage of good-sized retail premises in the Grafton Street area.

The store is currently trading as No Name, the fashion outlet.