Dublin’s Technological University has decided to postpone the sale of its central Aungier Street city campus, partly at the request of potential bidders.
The 2.5-acre D2HQ is a prime development site a short walk from St Stephen’s Green and was being prepared for sale by CBRE in March with a guide price of €110 mln.
The university and its partner Grangegorman Development Agency are understood to have postponed the sale due to the inability of international investors to travel and visit the site because of the coronavirus pandemic. These difficulties would impact the price they could achieve.
The site is zoned under the Dublin City Development Plan 2016-2022 with potential for a new urban quarter and a possible mix of uses including office, residential, student housing and retail. It is also expected to be one of the early CBD sites to benefit from the relaxed building height guidance. The existing 25,833 m2 of buildings are four to five floors high.
One Dublin source said: ‘This is a site that was attracting interest from international investors. Most were saying: “we really like the site and the real estate so please don’t progress it because we are going to be precluded because we are restricted and can’t inspect.”’
The local development community had been critical of the city’s historic opposition to tall buildings. However, two schemes have recently won consent for towers: Apollo House with 21 storeys permitted; and in north Docklands, the Connolly Quarter with a residential development allowed of 23 floors.
The 5,000 TU students and staff at Aungier Street make up the largest business school in Ireland and are due to join others on a new 73-acre campus in Grangegorman in September.
Elsewhere in Dublin, Nama is continuing to progress the long-running sale of the Irish Glass Bottle Company site in Ringsend, south of the capital, a process started last year before the coronavirus outbreak.
Nama was looking for €130 mln for 37 acres to provide 3,500 homes and has shortlisted a number of bidders. The site also has consent for 860,000 sq ft of commercial development.
One of the bidders, Ballymore, has won planning consent for another site, the former Ormond Printworks where it plans 435 new apartments.
