Cash in on Georges Quay bank offices

Bank-related group Certus are pulling out of Cork city offices they had only moved into just 16 months ago, as part of a downsizing move, as it prepares to shed 30% of its workforce and shuts offices in Cork, Dublin, Belfast and Limerick.

Certus, formed out of Bank of Scotland in 2010, had moved from a prominent period Leeside building Dún Mhuire on Grand Parade to a new-build on Georges Quay in October 2013, taking 7,800 sq ft on the first and second floors for 60-70 staff.

Now, though, the company seeks almost 200 redundancies, or about one third of its staff, and is also off-loading 16,000 sq ft in 124 St Stephens Green, laid out for 180 staff, and with five years left to run on a lease.

And, in Limerick, Certus is leaving a six-storey Henry Street office building developed by Aidan Brooks, via joint agents Brown Corrigan and Murphy Gubbins with a lease also set to run for five more years. Brown Corrigan quote a rent of c €46 psf for the Dublin offices which are near the Luas line and will rent swiftly, while in Limerick and Cork rents will be closer to €12.50 psf.

The Cork offices at 1/2 Georges Quay (left of pic) are top quality, in a Murray ÓLaoire designed building by Boland Developments. Joint agent with Brown Corrigan is Edward Hanafin of Lisney, who says it can be taken on a floor-by-floor basis, from 3,800 sq ft to 7,800 sq ft, with four parking spaces.

Otterbox is one of the building’s other tenants, and the ground floor at 2 Georges Quay is also available.

Close-by, Lisney last year acted in an off-market deal (one of the largest Cork office deals of the year) at the adjoining Abbeycourt House, where 35,000 sq ft over five floors has been leased by the Department of Social Protection for the country’s largest INTREO office, due to open imminently after a total building and energy upgrade.

The 1970s building on Georges Quay (right of pic) is owned by New Ireland Assurance Co, and previous tenants included the HSE, Cork City Council and Chorus/UPC, and, back in the day, Cork MultiChannel. It’s capable of hosting several hundred INTREO employees, and the Department will maintain its other social welfare services at the 1990s office at Clarkes Bridge.

Meanwhile, the old Certus offices at the Robin Power-owned Dún Mhuire remain ripe for new development, and could form part of a site assembly linking the South Mall/Grand Parade to the Brewery Quarter, which is now due redevelopment as an events centre/conference centre among a range of uses, which may include entertainement/multi-plex.

Commenting last week on the sale of the former Capitol cinema site in Cork city for €5-6m to John Cleary Developments, Government Minister Simon Coveney TD said he’d like to see a visual link along the river from South Mall to the former Beamish and Crawford/Brewery Quarter site.

Also recently sold on Grand Parade was the slate and bow-fronted 2,600 sq ft former offices of Fianna Fáil (fronting developer Paul Kenny’s cleared site next to Frinailla’s stalled library site), bought in trust by a private investor for less than €200,000 via David McCarthy of Lisney and O’Sullivan Estates.

Details: Lisney 021-427507