City's premiere office block to become Dole Office?

Mrs OBumble

http://connachttribune.ie/council-urged-speed-decision-galway-welfare-office/

I bet this is giving the city councillors some heartburn.

This a bit of a step up from the days of the Claddagh Bank.

Iwannahurl

If the entire dole/social welfare operation moves out of Augustine Street to Fairgreen, it will take its parking free-for-all with it.

All the better for Augustine Street (unless the Council continues to ignore the usual muppetry and lets it all happen again) but all the worse for Fairgreen.

There's enough traffic and parking chaos in Fairgreen already at certain times.

what_traffic

What's so premiere about it as an office space besides the obvious public transport connections at it's disposable? It's never been occupied since it was built.

Mrs OBumble

what_traffic wrote: »

What's so premiere about it as an office space besides the obvious public transport connections at it's disposable? It's never been occupied since it was built.

Not quite true: some info here http://evertb.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/the-not-so-web-works/

It was certainly meant to be premiere, and looks the part from the outisde - or it would if they washed the windows.

what_traffic

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Not quite true: some info here http://evertb.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/the-not-so-web-works/

It was certainly meant to be premiere, and looks the part from the outisde - or it would if they washed the windows.

From your link

"
The Galway Webworks, opened in 2009, fares much worse with just seven out of its 42 units occupied.
Some follow-up research showed that Webworks Galway currently only has 2 paying tenants at the moment.
"

I wonder is one of those tenants QPark - the underground car park and the other the operator of the public bus station attached to it?

nuac

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

http://connachttribune.ie/council-urged-speed-decision-galway-welfare-office/

I bet this is giving the city councillors some heartburn.

This a bit of a step up from the days of the Claddagh Bank.

Have you any details about the Claddagh Bank, pls.

How it was formed, it's extent etc

snubbleste

I would've thought Claddagh was before MrsOB's time..
How much rent does the DSP pay for Hynes Bldg though - I saw it somewhere in the past.
If the move is value for money for the State, then move.

Mrs OBumble

nuac wrote: »

Have you any details about the Claddagh Bank, pls.

How it was formed, it's extent etc

Local name for the dole office when it was located in Creaven House down on the Claddagh.

And indeed, before my time, though I've heard plenty of people speak not-so-fondly of it.

GekkePrutser

That building is only half finished (they left out the bit in the middle which is now a boneyard of concrete poles). I wouldn't call that a premier building either . The car park underneath does run all the way but part of it looks like a level from the Portal game (with doors suspended 30 feet high in the middle of a wall )

Does this mean they're actually going to finish it now?

snubbleste

The DSP were paying €457,425 per year for the offices in Hynes Building, in 2007. I assume it is the same or likely to be more now. https://www.kildarestreet.com/wrans/?id=2008-06-17.1151.0

"The Revenue Commissioners are paying an annual rent of more than €1.2m for office space in Fairgreen, which is the highest rate paid for government offices anywhere outside of the capital." http://www.politicalworld.org/archive/index.php/t-5212.html http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/politics/inquiry-call-over-former-bankers-rental-deal-135110.html

Where is the value for money there

stampydmonkey

snubbleste wrote: »

The DSP were paying €457,425 per year for the offices in Hynes Building, in 2007. I assume it is the same or likely to be more now. https://www.kildarestreet.com/wrans/?id=2008-06-17.1151.0

"The Revenue Commissioners are paying an annual rent of more than €1.2m for office space in Fairgreen, which is the highest rate paid for government offices anywhere outside of the capital." http://www.politicalworld.org/archive/index.php/t-5212.html http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/politics/inquiry-call-over-former-bankers-rental-deal-135110.html

Where is the value for money there

Been all around both buildings and revenue have lovely offices hence the rent. There are issues with that underground car park in that the water drips through the concrete onto cars in lots of places and ruins the paintwork. A good few areas are closed off for this reason.

snubbleste

stampydmonkey wrote: »

Been all around both buildings and revenue have lovely offices hence the rent...

Would a private entity pay €1.2m pa to rent that Fairgreen building though?

Mrs OBumble

snubbleste wrote: »

Would a private entity pay €1.2m pa to rent that Fairgreen building though?

Supply and demand. If they want an office in Galway, and they want one with enough space to bring them all together in the one building (which I did, they were previously spread over about 5 different building I think), then there probably aren't that many options.

I wonder how much a company like HP will be paying to lease their new building once it's finished? We won't ever know, of course, but it won't be cheap.

flynnlives

afaik that building was built under some public/private scheme. The webworks part was supposed to house a sort of Enterprise Ireland incubator hub for IT start ups. A smiliar building was built in Cork. Then the crash happened. It since went into the black hole that is NAMA.
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/enterprise-ireland-facilities-aimed-at-it-firms-left-vacant-147190.html

Rents as well where for some reason kept ridiculously high which meant that less then have the spaces where leased in cork and only a handful of spaces where taken in Galway. I also have my suspicions that these spaces where heavily subsidised.

http://evertb.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/the-not-so-web-works/

there is even a discussion here about this mess
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056098844

So a building which the tax payer has already forked out for will be paid out for twice, three times possibly?!

The whole affair warrants a proper public investigation. But alas this is Ireland and accountability is non existent.

You can be confident that the taxpayer will once again end up paying for this mess.

flazio

I wish the National Driving Licence Service would move in there, it'd be perfect, you could go straight over after passing your theory and get the ball rolling towards a driving licence. The current location is just awful for anyone who ironically, can't drive.

Mrs OBumble

flazio wrote: »

The current location is just awful for anyone who ironically, can't drive.

Eh? It's a five minute walk from a bus-route that runs every 20 minutes, 7am-7pm!

flazio

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Eh? It's a five minute walk from a bus-route that runs every 20 minutes, 7am-7pm!

Where as the office block in debate here is a 5 min walk from the Theory Test Centre and right beside the central bus stations so that every non driver in the county can access it quite easily without further expense.

Wompa1

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

I wonder how much a company like HP will be paying to lease their new building once it's finished? We won't ever know, of course, but it won't be cheap.

Are they leasing it? I thought they were building it themselves outright (I'm sure with some subsidies) Anything would be cheaper than the building they are currently in. Those high roofs were a foolish choice for what it's being used for...

antoobrien

Wompa1 wrote: »

Are they leasing it? I thought they were building it themselves outright (I'm sure with some subsidies) Anything would be cheaper than the building they are currently in. Those high roofs were a foolish choice for what it's being used for...

Bearing in mind it's not being used for the original purpose - manufacturing (for DEC) - that's a bit unfair to HP.

stampydmonkey

antoobrien wrote: »

Bearing in mind it's not being used for the original purpose - manufacturing (for DEC) - that's a bit unfair to HP.

As far as I know Hp are building the new building for themselves.

antoobrien

stampydmonkey wrote: »

As far as I know Hp are building the new building for themselves.

Ahem.

Wompa1 wrote: »

Anything would be cheaper than the building they are currently in. Those high roofs were a foolish choice for what it's being used for...

D Trent

http://galwaybayfm.ie/tenders-sought-fit-city-employment-hub/

Mrs OBumble

stampydmonkey wrote: »

As far as I know Hp are building the new building for themselves.

But do you have any source for that knowledge? Or have you just assumed it from the way press-releases are worded? (Remember that journalists do very little of the writing of what you see in the local papers.)

It's very common for large companies to lease their properties from a developer - mainly for the tax advantages.

stampydmonkey

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

But do you have any source for that knowledge? Or have you just assumed it from the way press-releases are worded? (Remember that journalists do very little of the writing of what you see in the local papers.)

It's very common for large companies to lease their properties from a developer - mainly for the tax advantages.

From where I used to work. We did some work in relation to the building and thats what I was told by hp staff.

snubbleste

Geata na Cathrach is now for sale for €23m
http://connachttribune.ie/e23m-price-tag-on-block-owned-by-former-anglo-head-397/

Mrs OBumble

snubbleste wrote: »

Geata na Cathrach is now for sale for €23m
http://connachttribune.ie/e23m-price-tag-on-block-owned-by-former-anglo-head-397/

Different building: "The site stretches from beside the WebWorks building to the Radisson and includes Exchange House and Geata na Cathrach."

snubbleste

Meh. It all looks the same to me

Wompa1

snubbleste wrote: »

Geata na Cathrach is now for sale for €23m
http://connachttribune.ie/e23m-price-tag-on-block-owned-by-former-anglo-head-397/

It's adorable that he states; with the bottoming out, they are confident it will attract investors.