PwC and Starbucks set for One Albert Quay move
PwC, which employs around 80 people in audit, tax, and advisory services in the city, will join Swiss security systems company Tyco at the Albert Quay site, where work is under way.
Starbucks, which already has a café in Mahon’s City Gate complex and it is to open another in nearby Mahon Point Shopping Centre, is also expected to take up tenancy at Albert Quay; bringing occupancy close to 70% before foundations are laid for the 200,000 sq ft JCD/Bam joint venture.
“Workers in technology companies want to work in a city centre location; they want to be able to get in there fast and go around the city at lunchtime... so that would push up the demand for office space in [the docklands] area and will kick off a bit of a revival in that area,” said Enterprise Ireland senior development adviser Robert Bushnell.
“As well as tech firms, the companies that service them — the lawyers, consultants — they’d also go there and form a sort of ecosystem; that’s what should happen in the area and that’s what I think will happen.”
With reports last week that Cork’s long-awaited conference and events centre will go ahead at the old Beamish & Crawford site on South Main St, the site of the proposed rival bid from O’Callaghan Properties on Albert Quay could be earmarked for another large-scale office development.
