Fit-out starts on Cork's newest state-of-the-art office block

Paul Kenneally, Development Manager for BAM Property, standing in Waterfront Square, outside No 1 Horgan's Quay. 

WORK to ready Cork city’s newest office bloc for the arrival of its first tenants is set to begin on Monday as the finishing touches are applied to No 1 Horgan’s Quay.

With co-working company Spaces due to commence operations at the prime mixed-use waterfront site in January, the fit-out begins in earnest next week.

Spaces, owned by IWG, the world’s largest serviced office group, were due to move into No 1 in August, but work at the ambitious €160m development halted for seven weeks due to the pandemic.

The company is taking 30,000 sq ft over two and a half floors at No 1, but they are the only committed occupier to date in the eight-storey office block, where the rent is €35 per square foot (psf).

The double height foyer in No 1 Horgan's Quay with original wooden trusses and steel columns from the Goods Shed.

Paul Kenneally, development manager for BAM Property, joint partners with Clarendon Properties in the Horgan’s Quay project, said that work on Nos 2 and 4 Horgan’s Quay, two additional eight-storey office blocks, is on hold until they secure more tenants.

“There are no major plans to kick off straight away,” he said. "We are not going to build on-spec without the security of further pre-lets or until we get No 1 up to a decent letting level."

However he was “optimistic that once Covid-19 passes, and when people come and see that we have a good offering here, we’ll have a very good chance of letting”.

New "loft" floor at first floor level is one of the lettable spaces within the former Goods Shed. 

It was his opinion, he said, that working from home fulltime in the long term was not what either businesses or employees wanted.

Ronan Downing, development director with Clarendon Properties, said the arrival of Covid had been “a huge blow for everyone”, and while they were receiving enquiries from prospective tenants, “Covid was making everyone sit on their hands”.

“Our view, though, is once a treatment is in sight, things will turn around fairly quickly,” he said.

The plan has always been to build the O’Mahony Pike-designed office blocks, offering around 310,000 sq ft of office space in total and with a base occupancy rate of one person/8 sq m, on a phased basis.

View east from Floor 4 of No 1 Horgan's Quay, out over the River Lee and upper harbour

With regard to plans for 300+ build-to-rent apartments at the site, Mr Downing, said they were “working tirelessly to make the apartment scheme viable”.

“We hope to be on site in the first half of next year with a PRS (private rented sector) operator on board,” he said.

Mr Kenneally said they believed there was “still an appetite for apartment living in Cork”, and that tremendous work had been done on the financial side over the past six months looking at how to make it viable.

“We haven’t gone to the market yet [for a PRS operator] because we are working on getting the cost base down to make it feasible," he said. "But the feedback from our agents is that there is an appetite.

“We need an operator in place before we start building, and we need a good product to get an operator. We are hoping this will be done by Q1 of next year, although it might drift to Q2.” 

The majority of the apartments will be two-bed and a “podium garden” is also proposed over a car park. The centrepiece of the residential development, which will front onto Railway Street, will be the restored Station House heritage building. Retail/food/beverage spaces, fronting onto the new Waterfront Square, are earmarked for the ground floor of the residential development.

Mr Kenneally said having residential on site would be “a big selling point” for attracting businesses keen to know what housing options were available locally for employees.

He said the location next to a major rail terminus and with onsite car parking (175 spaces), a bike station, and proximity to the bus terminus were also a draw.

Regardless of hold-ups to the remaining key elements of the overall project, what has been achieved since work began on the six-acre CIE-owned site since December 2018 is impressive.

In addition to the state-of-the-art office block and new 113-bed Wilson Architecture-designed Dean Hotel with rooftop dining, the city is gaining more than 1.5 acres of new public realm including two new squares — Waterfront Square, fronting No 1, and Railway Square, fronting the Dean, as well as new routes between the buildings.

The development includes new steps from the Lower Glanmire Road to create a new pedestrian access point to the city’s quays and railway station, and the restoration of significant onsite industrial heritage buildings including the Goods Shed, where trains once dropped off goods’ deliveries; the Carriage Sheds; the Clerk’s House; and the Station House.

New steps from Lower Glanmire Road to Horgans Quay

Mr Kenneally said that previously some of these beautiful old buildings were not visible to the general public, that they were hidden behind big sheds, in various stages of dilapidation.

Now, the Clerk’s House and the Goods Shed, under the guidance of JCA Conservation Architects (who are also conservation architect’s at the BAM Brewery Quarter site) are both an integral part of No 1 Horgan’s Quay, with the new office block cantilevered out over the Goods Shed’s 9m-high Cork limestone wall.

Moreover, the restored structure of the Goods Shed, together with its original wooden trusses and internal steel columns, is very much part of the fabric of the new building, providing a stunning backdrop to No 1’s 9m double-height entrance hall and reception foyer.

The restored Clerk’s House, which adjoins No 1, has been repurposed internally to create spaces that can be used as meeting rooms or individual offices or as boardrooms.

Mr Kenneally said restoring the building was “one-and-a-half times more expensive than a new build”.

Adjoining the Dean are the restored 17,000 sq ft Carriage Sheds, which date to the 1850s, and earmarked for food/beverages/retail, with agent Savills offering options to either rent in its entirety, or to subdivide.

BAM Construction contracts manager Frank Brennan said there are also options within No 1 Horgan’s Quay to subdivide office floors.

“There are two doors into each floorplate and a service riser on either side, so you could put in subdividing walls,” he said.

The changing face of Cork city's quays, with JCD Penrose Quay development in the foreground and No 1 Horgan's Quay in the background. 

A spokesperson for the Dean said they “still scheduled to open in December as planned”.

“Christmas bookings are being taken from December 10, and we are delighted to see a great interest so far in bedrooms and Sophie's Rooftop Restaurant,” the spokesperson said.

For information on tenancies at No 1 Horgan’s Quay, the letting agents are Savills on [phone] and Cushman Wakefield on [phone].