The landmark headquarters of leading Dublin law firm, Ivor Fitzpatrick & Co, are being put up for sale following a decision by the company to relocate. The firm’s move from its long-standing office at 44/45 St Stephen’s Green comes just over one year after the death of Mr Fitzpatrick, the firm’s founder and managing partner. The property, which occupies a pivotal position at the junction of St Stephen’s Green and Hume Street, is being offered to the market with the benefit of full vacant possession by agent Knight Frank at a guide price of €10 million.
Built in the early 1970s, 44/45 St Stephen’s Green briefly comprises a modern concrete structure behind a mock-Georgian facade. The building, which extends to a net internal area of 1,564sq m (16,830sq ft), has a mix of open-plan and cellular offices over six floors, with typical floor plates of about 293sq m (3,150sq ft). That floor plate is in line with a large proportion of current occupier trends. Some 45 per cent of leasing activity in Dublin 2 over the past five years has been for office units under 465sq m (5,000 sq ft). The property has 15 car-parking spaces.
A feasibility study prepared in advance of the sale by Reddy Architecture + Urbanism identifies the potential for a new owner to increase the property’s value through either a light-touch refurbishment or a full-scale retrofit. Proposed enhancements include the provision of a new internal core, a reimagined internal layout, and the addition of an extended penthouse level. These upgrades could bring the building’s footprint up to a net internal area of 1,640sq m (17,653 sq ft) while improving the property’s sustainability.
44/45 St Stephen’s Green served for many years as the office of Ivor Fitzpatrick & Co. During his lifetime, Mr Fitzpatrick forged a hugely successful career in both law and in business. While the law firm he founded and managed didn’t operate at the same scale as the big five legal companies (Arthur Cox, A&L Goodbody, Matheson, William Fry and McCann FitzGerald), it was highly successful in its own right. It specialised in banking, corporate advice, medical negligence and personal injury, real estate and planning, and in litigation, including defamation.
Ivor Fitzpatrick made much of his undoubted wealth – he was reputed to be worth up to €100 million at the time of his death – from property, in which he was associated with some of the country’s biggest real estate developers and investors, among them Paddy McKillen, Johnny Ronan and Pat Doherty. Other business partners and law clients included Robert “Pino” Harris and Dermot Desmond.
Given its location in one of Dublin city centre’s most tightly held and sought-after locations, the property is expected to see interest from a range of prospective owner-occupiers, investors and developers. The property overlooks St Stephen’s Green and is within a short walk of Grafton Street and numerous of the city’s foremost hotels, including the Shelbourne Hotel, the Merrion Hotel and the Conrad Dublin.
