Moves to downsize the bank have meant the head office on Baggot Street is now too spacious
THE BANK of Ireland is to lease a newly built office block at Burlington Road in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, to accommodate staff moving out of its long-standing Baggot Street head office. The new facility is within a few hundred yards of the bank’s office building on Mespil Road, which is to become the new official headquarters from the end of March.
The bank is due to complete legal contracts shortly to lease Burlington Plaza 2. It is one of two high quality blocks completed about a year ago by a consortium in which AIB Investment Managers and a fund controlled by private clients of the same bank each have a 25 per cent stake. The remaining 50 per cent is shared equally by property investors Paddy Kelly and John Flynn.
Bank of Ireland is understood to have agreed a rent of €403 per sq m (€37.50 per sq ft) for 6,938sq m (74,686sq ft) under a long lease which is certain to include regular break options.
The owners of the block had originally expected to achieve a rent of close to €700 per sq m (€65 per sq ft) because of the prime location and high standard of the fit-out.
Willie Dowling of CB Richard Ellis is believed to be handling negotiations for the owners.
The pending deal with Bank of Ireland means the owners will not now be able to lease 1,129sq m (12,151sq ft) on the third floor to Australian bank Macquarie, which currently rents a floor from solicitors Mason Hayes and Curran at Barrow Street.
Macquarie is likely to be given the option of taking a floor of the adjoining Burlington Plaza 1, which has an identical fit-out and appearance but larger overall floor space at 15,285sq m (164,534sq ft).
Bank of Ireland has reduced its executive staff, most of them based in Baggot Street, by around 20 per cent in the past year. Around 1,700 employees in total have left the bank in the same period. The bank plans to avail of a break clause in the Baggot Street lease to move out of the building, which has a floor area of 20,500sq m (220,662sq ft).
Chief executive Richie Boucher has already relocated to the 11,000sq m (118,404sq ft) Mespil road complex where the private banking, asset management and parts of the legal and business banking divisions are based.
Some bank functions are likely to be transferred to Cabinteely, where a back office has been maintained for some years. The bank’s neighbours in Burlington Road will include EBS and part of the Anglo Irish Bank operation.
The Baggot Street head office dates from 1972. It was sold for €200 million just before the property crash to a consortium of investors led by financier Derek Quinlan and developer Paddy Shovlin. A subsequent decision by Dublin City Council to put a preservation order on it has made it more difficult to get planning approval for additional office space on the site.
The restriction has come as a further blow to the owners, who have already watched the value of the block fall significantly over the past four years.
Before the financial crisis, the bank had been in negotiations to relocate its various operations across 30 offices in Dublin to a planned new 41,805sq m (450,000sq ft) office block planned for the north Docklands by developer Liam Carroll.
The bank later considered an alternative site for its headquarters – the former Burlington Hotel in Dublin 4.
The hotel was sold, along with 5.4 acres, to developer Bernard McNamara for €288 million. That project had been expected to cost around €1 billion.
