Former bank’s new look

There’s shades of banishing the remaining ghosts of the much-reviled Anglo Irish Bank at its building foot-prints in both Dublin and Cork cities: the Central Bank has started to convert Anglo’s vaunting vanity HQ project to new State service, while Cork’s former Anglo Irish Bank building is getting a re-brand and letting pitch after a multi-million euro purchase.

Enabling work on the former hulking shell structure on the North Wall in Dublin’s docklands (once destined for Anglo as a statement HQ, but abandoned since 2008,) has started with Linham Construction, following the €8m purchase of the quayside shell-site by the Central Bank. They’re due to depart their iconic Dame Street building by Temple Bar by 2016.

Meanwhile, in Cork, following a c €3m building purchase, there’s new owners, new lettings and a new name with the arrival of 11 Anglesea Street,Anglo Irish Bank’s former building in Cork City’s expanded CBD.The wedge-shaped building, developed at a reported cost of €20m by Howard Holdings and funded by Anglo, who branded it and took ground-level and some overhead space there, was sold to private investors at the start of this year for close to €3m.