A substantial office block dating from the 1970s at 72-74 Harcourt Street, Dublin 2, is to be offered for sale at €15 million through the JLL agency.

The five-storey-over-basement building with the original Georgian-style facade has an overall floor area of 3,251sq m (35,000sq ft) and is vacant at present.

It has 50 car parking spaces at ground and basement level and from the upper floors offers views of the Iveagh Gardens to the rear.

Investors looking at the property will have to decide whether to embark on a full- scale refurbishment costing between €120 and €50 per sq ft which would probably trigger a rent of up to €484 per sq m (€45 per sq ft).

Tidy up

Alternatively a basic tidy up of the space would mean that it could be let short term for about €301 to €322 per sq m (€28 to €30 per sq ft).

A €15 million valuation on the property will work out at around €420 per sq ft. Similar buildings in Dublin’s south inner city have been refurbished over the past 12 months to capitalise on the shortage of Grade A office space and to benefit from the higher rents now available.

JLL say the layout of the building offers the flexibility to be multi-let. The floor plates of about 557sq m to 743sq m (6,000sq ft to 8,000sq ft) with smaller basement and penthouse levels are ideally suited to the current market requirements.

The market for floors of less than 929sq m (10,000sq ft) is the most active in Dublin 2 – more than 64 per cent of deals in the past year were in this category.