'Silicon Alley' sold in €118m deal

The Government tonight sold part of Dublin’s ‘Silicon Alley’ in a deal worth €118m.

The nine-acre Digital Hub site in the south-inner city was acquired in the 1990s with the aim of building a technology centre to rival the best in the world.

Minister for Communications Noel Dempsey said 5.6 acres of the site had been sold to two development companies.

“I am delighted with the result of a very competitive tender process, which involved half a dozen developers bidding for each site,” he said.

The Digital Hub experienced a major setback in January when its flagship tenant, Media Lab Europe, went into liquidation at a cost of €35m to the state.

However, the hub is now at full capacity again with 54 digital media companies employing more than 500 people.

The Government had originally planned to sell the entire site to Manor Park Homebuilders on condition that it would guarantee a certain amount of office space for digital media companies.

But the deal fell through earlier this year because Manor Park felt the risk of having unoccupied offices was too great.

However, Manor Park successfully acquired the Crane Street site in the public tendering process and P. Elliot and company acquired the Thomas Street site, where the old Guinness Windmill is located.

The two companies will be required to build 140,000 square feet of office space, which will be owned by the Government and reserved exclusively for digital media companies.

The remainder of the space at the sites will be used by the developers to build a mixture of shops, apartments and civic spaces.

The €118m deal, which includes the value of the offices and cash payments, represents good value for the Government, which originally spent around €74m to acquire the property, most of it from the Guinness company, whose historic St James’s Gate brewery dominates the area.

The Digital Hub Development Agency said it was delighted with the deal.

“The new development phase is a huge boost to the Digital Hub Project, and we are now moving closer to our objective of making the Liberties area one of Europe’s key centres for digital enterprise, research and development,” said chief executive Philip Flynn.