US research company to relocate to East Point complex

US CLINICAL research company Quintiles is to relocate to a new 50,000-square-foot high-tech building at East Point Business Park in the Dublin docklands.

The company currently occupies about 20,000 square feet of office space at Ossory House, a four-storey over basement Georgian-style office block which forms part of the Earlsfort Centre, opposite the National Concert Hall.

Quintiles will be paying around £11 per square foot for its new accommodation, which will qualify for tax breaks because it is located in an enterprise zone. It will be ready for occupation this summer.

Quintiles is trying to assign the lease of its current premises which are rented at £16 per square foot under a long lease. The company is unlikely to have much difficulty in finding a replacement tenant because of the shortage of well-located, high-quality accommodation.

Dermot Pierce, managing director of East Point, said he was particularly happy to see Quintiles going to East Point as it would broaden the range of companies setting up bases in the complex.

Earlsfort Developments, owner of the Earlsfort Centre, is also the developers of East Point, which is proving one of the great successes of the current property boom.

Investors have been buying up buildings as soon as they are let. Private investors have been particularly active, spending more than £15 million on new buildings, which are aimed primarily at overseas electronic, computer and healthcare companies involved in research and development. Most of the high-value investments were acquired by business syndicates but properties costing up to £1 million were bought mainly by individual investors, who are banking on long leases and the security of income to pay their mortgages. Total sales are expected to exceed £70 million.

With more than 400,000 square feet of space already committed, the agents are in negotiations to let the remaining 200,000 square feet planned for the park. When completed, East Point will have a workforce of over 5,000 people - around the same as the nearby International Financial Services Centre. A DART station is to open beside the park next May.

Computer software company ACT Kindle proved a valuable launch customer for the park and was quickly joined by Oracle, Sun Micro Systems and joint venture partners America On Line and Bertelsmann.