Porter Privé has taken over management of three Dublin city centre serviced office spaces formerly operated by Paddy McKillen jnr’s business Grafter, including the building used by tech firm OpenAI for its Dublin headquarters.
The new venture set up by Emma Kennedy, who headed up Grafter until April of last year, now manages 41 Lower Leeson Street, 10 Ely Place and the building formerly occupied by Topshop on Grafton Street called Smyth House, which is used by OpenAI for its Dublin office.
Following her exit from Grafter last year, Kennedy joined real-estate investor Fine Grain Property as commercial director.
She told The Irish Times she was approached by receivers of Interpath Advisory, who were in control of the buildings being used by Grafter and asked to put together a proposal for management of the buildings earlier this year.
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Her business, Porter Privé, has now taken over the locations within the past four weeks.
“Flexible workspace has been my background for a significant period of time, so it was always playing in the back of my mind that I would like to set up again and ultimately we got this opportunity. We put a proposal together and we got the green light,” Kennedy said.
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She added Porter Privé is still in its early phase, but the company has already received interest in its unused space across the three locations from tech, AI, financial services and recruitment companies.
“We’re getting up and running in terms of marketing materials, but I’ve noticed in the past four weeks, I would get at least two leads a day just to my own phone. That’s just from word of mouth because people have heard we’re managing the buildings.”
Kennedy has a 75 per cent controlling stake in Porter Privé, which she established with her brother Ken Kennedy, a principal of the practice Ken Kennedy Law who has a 25 per cent stake. McKillen jnr has no shareholding in the business.
She said the company has already cut a deal to lease space on a temporary basis to an AI firm, but she declined to name the company.
“When we occupied Ely Place, it was at about 40 per cent occupancy. That’s jumped to 70 per cent now due to a deal we’ve done with an AI company. Smyth House is operating at 96 per cent occupancy.”
Last year, Interpath Advisory was installed by Relm Finance as receiver over McKillen jnr companies that owned Smyth House, 10 Ely Place and 41 Lower Leeson Street. McKillen jnr’s Grafter business that traded from the buildings was not connected to the receivership.
Joint receivers of the properties, Ken Fennell and Brendan O’Reilly of Interpath Advisory, then took control of the serviced office spaces in the three properties and installed flexible workspace provider Iconic Offices as manager of the buildings.
McKillen jnr sued the receivers and sought a declaration that the purported forfeitures of leases for 41 Lower Leeson Street, 10 Ely Place and Smyth House by Interpath were null and void.
Interpath has moved to sell some of the assets in receivership in recent months, with 41 Leeson Street Lower being offered for sale at a guide price of more than €2 million. Smyth House is expected to fetch a higher price. It was acquired by Paddy McKillen jnr’s development firm Oakmount from Iput for about €17.25 million in 2022.
