Latest news with #PatCrean
Irish Times
7 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Marlet secures €238m refinancing deal for College Square development
Developer Pat Crean's Marlet Property Group and its partner M&G Investments have secured a €238 million refinancing facility with Standard Chartered for College Square, the landmark office scheme they have developed in Dublin city centre. Standard Chartered acted as sole underwriter, mandated lead arranger, and hedging bank for the transaction, which is understood to have been completed late on Wednesday night. It qualifies as a Green Loan under the Green Loan Principles due to College Square being one of the most sustainable buildings in Ireland, having achieved LEED Platinum Certification and targeting WiredScore Platinum and A3 BER ratings. Commenting on the deal, Marlet's CEO Pat Crean said: 'We are delighted to have closed our first financing facility with Standard Chartered. This new facility brings us through the next chapter of the College Square development while Workday completes preparations to occupy the building and our PRS platform, DUBLIV, completes the leasing of the residential units.' READ MORE Ronan O'Dowd, global head of commercial real estate at Standard Chartered said: 'This green loan financing facility underscores our commitment to backing transformative developments that deliver long-term value for communities, investors, and the city itself.' News of the refinancing deal comes just seven weeks after Marlet and M&G completed a deal with US technology giant Workday for some 38,648 sq m (416,000 sq ft) of the office space at College Square. The company's accommodation represents the entirety of College Square's 'super-prime' office space and is the equivalent of five and a half football pitches. The College Square deal is the largest single office letting to have taken place in the European office market since 2021. The US enterprise technology giant's decision to base its operations there was first revealed by The Irish Times in August of last year. Developed on sites occupied formerly by Apollo House and the neighbouring College House, College Square is a major mixed-use scheme comprising a total of 50,170 sq m (540,000 sq ft) of LEED Platinum office accommodation and 1,580 sq m (17,000 sq ft) of retail space distributed over 10 floors. The development has an overall height of 22 storeys owing to the inclusion of 58 high-end apartments on 12 floors above the office element of the scheme.
Irish Independent
7 days ago
- Business
- Irish Independent
US tech giant Workday earmarks $468m for Dublin HQ in 20-year lease deal
Workday confirmed last month that it had inked an agreement with M&G Real Estate and Pat Crean's Marlet Property Group to lease the entire space at the new city centre College Square development. It's being constructed on the site of the former Apollo House and is almost complete. The deal for the 416,000sqft of super-prime office space marked the single largest transaction in the sector in Europe since the pandemic. In its first quarter results released this month, Workday confirmed the amount it has set aside for the lease of the new Dublin office. Dublin's office market is poised for 'significant recovery' this year 'During the first quarter of fiscal 2026, we entered into a new operating lease agreement for our European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland which has not yet commenced, with total undiscounted lease payments of $468m,' it told investors. 'The operating lease is expected to commence in the second quarter of fiscal 2026 with a lease term of 20 years.' The lease deal was a major coup for Marlet and the broader office market. Workday had originally intended to construct its own 550,000sqft European headquarters on a site in Grangegorman in the capital. However, it abandoned that plan earlier this year, opting instead to move its staff to the development on Tara Street. Workday will move its 2,000 staff, currently at two separate locations in Dublin, to the new location. Mr Crean, who is Marlet's chief executive, described the lease agreement as a 'significant milestone' for Dublin's office market. Construction of College Square, which also features 54 apartments, is expected to be completed next month, with Workday commencing its fit-out programme soon after. Real estate firm Savills said in March that Dublin's office market is poised for 'significant recovery' this year, driven by rapidly falling vacancy rates, major corporate commitments and strong demand for prime office spaces. It said that the office vacancy rate in the Dublin 2 area is expected to fall sharply by the end of 2025, due to strong occupier interest and substantial pre-let activity. Savills said that prime office rents in Dublin's central business district have already begun to recover, having risen 4pc year-on-year to €65 per square foot in the final quarter of 2024. That's the highest figure on record.
