Re: Re: DDDA / Docklands Miscellany
I’m surprised at your line of thought there Brian. The city is swimming in vacant office space and potential start-up premises for businesses available on a short-term basis.
The developers in Ireland don’t know how to break it up and manage the space in that way. We have not got an advanced enough model to cope with that, in either residential or commercial space. Indeed, with the way the global economy works these days, often the worker requires both flexible short term living space and working space. It is so different to what we are used to. Getting around the globe with air travel, and fibre optic technology has changed the rules so much that property management has fallen too far behind.
The same is true of Energy generation. What is starting to happen is a new intermediate layer of information technology is creeping in between the supplier and the consumer. The intermediate player is looking at how energy is produced and how the consumer is using it and when. We need a similar thing to happen with property. The dafts, my homes, etc looked interesting because they live on the internet rather than in a physical auctioneers office. But we need to push this a lot further.
In simple terms, property management has to borrow some of its approach today from the utility companies. It would be ideal if people with utility scale experience moved into property management. In the same way that Amory Lovins remarked about the automobile industry. That many executives from the aeronautical industry who understand modern materials, fuel efficiency etc are now working for Ford, GM etc.
I suppose the big thing to watch in Dublin is trends with projects like the old Irish Times site on D’olier Street. The clever thing is that the Irish Times was housed in a new and larger building on Tara Street if I am not mistaken. From an Irish Times point of view, it is off the beaten track. But from a Tara Street point of view, it can welcome its new visitor with open arms. The move allowed for the Fleet Street/D’olier Street site to be opened up for re-development. Now the next stage, of projects such as this, is to make very clever use of the old site on the main thoroughfare. That demands us to develop a new model for how we effectively and creatively manage property.
Brian O’ Hanlon
