Re: Academy Street Deal Done and Dusted

Well it seems my earlier reports have borne fruit and Owen O’Callaghan has indeed been the successful bidder for the Irish Examiner’s Academy Street premises. Along with the Johnson and Perrot premises on Emmet Place, most of Faulkers Lane, and some of Bowling Green Street, O’Callaghan Properties now own 90% of this 1.5 acre block.

Thomas Crosbie Holdings, owners of the Irish Examiner, Sunday Business Post, Evening Echo and 14 other titles – bagged 30 million euros for the sale and – the deal clincher – a 3.5 acre site at O’Callaghan’s Mahon Point complex in the suburbs alongside the South Ring Motorway.

The 3.5 acre site will be leased to Webprint Concepts, a start-up printing company to which the Thomas Crosbie Holdings will outsource its printing.

It is the Irish Examiner’s intention to relocate its non-printing operations (ie. editorial etc) from its Academy Street premises in 2006 to a newly built office building on a site it owns on Lavitts Quay, right next to O’Callaghan’s new 21 Lavitts Quay office building.

O’Callaghan has proposed a new 6-storey retail and apartment development for the Academy Street/Emmet Place/Faulkner’s Lane area – with basement, ground, 1st, 2nd and 3rd floors dedicated to retail operations and 4th, 5th and 6th = apartments. (shudder!)

Other bids I hear from good sources had been made by Howard Holdings, a company owned by Treasury Holdings, Lagan Developments and a consortium involving Cumor Construction, McCarthy Developments (indirectly), Brian McCarthy Construction and possibly P. Elliot Construction.

O’Flynn Construction are focusing on their Ballincollig Town Centre Development and new retail/residential complex at Eglinton Street, Cork city centre.