DLR Properties announces lettings to blue-chip Tech sector tenants

Two high-calibre international technology firms have agreed to lease a total of 31,000 sq ft in one of two buildings owned by DLR Properties Ltd at Cherrywood, marking a further milestone in the development of Cherrywood into a leading office location for FDI firms.

DLR Properties, a company wholly-owned by Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Council, owns and actively manages land and buildings in Cherrywood. The Company, which today announced the lettings, is now working with the new tenants to refurbish and fit out the premises to precise client specifications.

The new tenants are

·        Hibernia Evros, who are taking 20,000sq.ft for their Network Operations Centre. Hibernia is a homegrown IT and data management company of 20 years standing that looks after the IT systems of many large Irish-based local and international companies.  There are currently over 200 people working for Hibernia, a figure the company hopes to double over the next three years.

·        Welocalize Ireland, who are taking 11,000sq.ft. Welocalize is a leader in translation and software localisation solutions helping top global IT and consumer brands deliver high volumes of product content on demand and reach audiences around the world in more than 120 languages. Welocalize has offices in 13 locations world-wide and employs 70 people in Ireland.

According to Rob Davies Chief Executive of DLR Properties: “We are very pleased to have technology firms of this calibre making a strong commitment in Cherrywood and we are delighted to be able to deliver bespoke accommodation to them which is directly suited to their needs. Cherrywood continues to deliver on the original vision of developing a major business hub outside the city with excellent public transport links including a Luas stop at our door and the M50 within a kilometre.”

Bob Murray the Managing Director of Hibernia Evros Technology Group said:  “We were looking to put our stamp on a state of the art hi-tech facility to meet our demanding requirements. The opportunity to work with a flexible landlord who was willing to get to understand our business and then configure a building to our requirements was important.  This space will allow us expand our existing service offerings including the build out of our expanded DR (Disaster Recovery) facility. That’s what we’ve got here. Furthermore, the potential scale of Cherrywood offers us the space to match our future expansion plans.”

Olga Blasco, Senior Vice-President of Supply Chain and Production Business Units for Welocalize also said the flexibility offered by the availability of new office accommodation that had not been fitted out to a generic standard was key to their decision.  “We will be getting a custom designed building, a landlord who is working with us to give us what we need, and rents at much more competitive levels than in Dublin city centre, she said.

DLR Properties owns and manages two buildings in Cherrywood:  Block AA (65,000 sq.ft.) and Block G2 (105,000 sq.ft).  The two new lettings are in Block AA, which was previously occupied by Lucent Technologies and Service Source.

DLR Properties has been carrying out a refurbishment programme to bring the properties to state of the art standards required for modern technology and new industry companies and there is strong interest from several potential tenants with announcement of further lettings expected shortly.

According to Rob Davies:  “We are seeing demand from large scale occupiers seeking accommodation at a more competitive overall occupancy cost than the City Centre. Occupancy costs in the suburbs can be 50% of those in the City Centre. With the supply of available stock falling to extremely low levels and rents continuing to increase in the City Centre, we anticipate more occupiers will be considering suburban locations such as Cherrywood.  Block G2 is the only available office building in the south suburbs capable of accommodating 10,000 sq. m. + in a single building.”

DLR Properties has a Board of Council-appointed directors, chaired by Pam Kearney.  Its buildings are part of the broader Cherrywood Business Park development, where current occupiers include Dell (160,000 sq. ft.), Pocketkings, (60,000 sq. ft.), Friends First (75,000 sq. ft.), Covidien (50,000 sq. ft.)

DLR Properties also owns 22 acres of development land immediately adjacent the Bride’s Glen Luas stop, which is destined to accommodate a high quality business and mixed use development under the current draft Cherrywood Strategic Development Zone (SDZ).  Cherrywood is the largest undeveloped zoned land area within the M50 and when completed will provide up to1.4million sq ft of development.

Pam Kearney said “The company’s development land holding, Cherrywood Central, is unique and ripe for development. We are awaiting the result of the SDZ process from An Bord Pleanala and we hope a positive result will issue which will facilitate the early development and occupation of this strategic land holding”.