Real Estate Thought Leadership Blog

International Real Estate Search: Finding Space in Dublin (and enjoying a few beers, too!)

  

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Recently, I had the pleasure of travelling to Dublin with one of T3’s clients who is looking to establish a presence in Ireland.  Situated near the midpoint of Ireland’s east coast at the mouth of the River Liffey, the city is divided into twenty-four sections. (With the exception of parts of Dublin 8, the odd numbers are on the north side of the river and the even numbers are on the south side). D1, D2, D3, and D4 are the more urban areas.

During the trip, we toured about a dozen properties, a good mix of both new developments and older properties.  Most of the vacant space we visited had previously been home to financial service companies and banks that fell on hard times during the recent financial crisis. Included in our tour was LinkedIn’s Dublin office at Wilton Plaza.  I was pretty surprised that a company of LinkedIn’s stature would chose to lease 50,000 square feet in the building, as it is an older building with operable windows and no central air conditioning. One of the properties we toured was adjacent to Google’s office on Barrow Street.  In 2010, Google purchased two large buildings in the city, and now employs about 3,000 people. Facebook’s office was not too far away and rumor has it the company may be out in the market looking for bigger digs. 

In addition to touring office space, we were able to see a bit of the city during our time in Dublin, many areas of which reminded me a great deal of Boston. For example, Dublin’s City Center, beautiful with tree-lined streets, filled with rows of both residential and commercial Georgian style 3-4 story walk-ups, had a feel very similar to that of Boston’s Back Bay.  The Docklands area, which has quickly become a hot market for new and innovative companies, reminded me of Boston’s Seaport and Innovation District. I also had the opportunity to visit Grafton Street, which like Boston’s Faneuil Hall Marketplace, is a bustling pedestrian retail area of the city, and St. Stephan’s Garden, which resembles Boston’s Public Garden in both size and beauty. I also found the Samuel Beckett Bridge similar in style to Boston’s own Zakim Bridge. I learned that the iconic Dublin bridge extends across the river and symbolizes the future promise of revitalization and strengthening of the Dublin economy,

And finally, no trip to Dublin would be complete without a visit or two to the local Irish pubs where we enjoyed our fair share of freshly brewed Guinness by the pint!

Check out some cool pictures from the trip:

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