Offices are in competition with employee homes, so new developments need to be comfortable, stimulating and enjoyable places to work, says the head of Iput, the biggest owner of offices in Dublin.
You won’t be able to lease buildings or value building unless you have these characteristics, says Iput CEO Niall Gaffney.
He is standing in the one-acre Wilton Park along the grand canal, a stone’s throw from Baggot Street Bridge. Behind the Victorian park is a huge construction site which will house four new office blocks, totalling 600,000 sq ft for LinkedIn’s European HQ. The buildings will house around 5,000 people.
But in addition to offices, Iput aims to create a neighbourhood at the €250m Wilton Park development . Gaffney says companies such as LinkedIn have extremely high expectations for what such a development will offer staff. The park is a focal point but shops and restaurants on the ground floors will not be big name brands but smaller businesses, he says. Iput recently announced that a public space in the development will be named after writer Mary Lavin.
There are plans for a not-for-profit book shop, several artisan food outlets, a huge digital screen for art displays and a writer in residence.
As for the offices, they will link up with an existing LinkedIn building. Spacious and utilising huge amounts of glass, the offices also boast rooftop gardens – 30,000 sq ft in total – with stunning views from Dun Laoghaire to the tower at Dublin airport.
Well-being and sustainability are at the heart of modern requirements.
“If you’re a company and you occupy a building, if you’ve got the footprint of LinkedIn and Google, one of the biggest influences you have on carbon is probably the building you occupy,” says Gaffney.
It has been a development decades in the making. The first building in Wilton Park was brutalist Fitzwilton House, acquired in 1982. Over the last decade, the other properties were bought up by the fund, 50pc of which comes from Irish pension funds such as RTÉ and the ESB pensions. Allianz is one of the major international funds which has put money into Iput.
“What we discovered when we started working with people like LinkedIn and tech companies, is they understand the value of the dollar and they understand investment and return on investment, and for them the people who work for them are their collateral, that is their equity,” says Gaffney.
“So as a real estate owner competing in a market that is trying to attract those type of occupiers, it makes sense to offer people what they want. And what they want is healthy, stimulating environments that look at well-being in an holistic way. Not in a faddish way.”
While employers are taking account of employee preferences for flexible work, he believes people will gravitate towards offices. “I think there is going to be a renaissance in office and working environments. They won’t go back to what there were like, they will just be better.”
Gaffney said the great cities in the world always had open spaces, pointing to Guinness which provided the Iveagh Gardens for workers. “We just took it for granted in Dublin and became too complacent. And I think developers are to blame, city planners are to blame. We have viewed our cities as almost functional.”
He says Iput has the advantage of being able to take a long-term view. “This is a great opportunity to leave a legacy. We’re not looking to flog this to the next foreign investor who comes in.”
“We have been here for 40 years and we intend to be here for the next 40 years. There are some fine developments being done around the city by leading international development companies but they have probably been here for less than five years. Are they going to be here in another five years or 10 years, maybe so. But ultimately they are funded by overseas capital to a different agenda.”