Passport Office is on the move downriver in Cork to Navigation Square
Cork Picture: Anderson Albert Square City Development Quay On Centre Navigation Chani In
PERMISSION to travel is being sought by Cork city’s Passport Office: but it’s only moving 500 metres, downriver, to the eastern side of City Hall.
The public-facing passport service is set to move downriver in the city centre, from its existing base at 1A South Mall, to a new location in Cork’s south docks, on Albert Quay, to a site proposed nearly a decade ago for Cork’s Events Centre.
It's one of two Cork docklands lettings currently being finalised by the Office of Public Works (OPW), Irish Examiner Property has learned.
As significant for the type of user in the setting, as for the amount of space being taken up, the Passport Office will be the more public user: the second under discussion is a significant legal-based State service coming to Cork in its first move out of Dublin.
Well-placed sources confirm that the Office of Public Works has been in ongoing, and by now protracted, discussions with agents acting for developers O’Callaghan Properties’ Navigation Square Development Properties’ ongoing 360,000 sq ft development by Albert Quay and near Kennedy Quay by the corner with Victoria Road.
The impending move, yet to be fully inked by the OPW, will see the vital Department of Foreign Affairs’ public passport office for citizens and travelers move from the end of the traditional Central Business District the South Mall, to the burgeoning docklands development, and will add to the wider public experience of the ‘new’ CBD.
At present the current public passport office at 1A South Mall is open Monday to Fridays: it’s not yet confirmed when the move will take place to Navigation Square, about 500 metres away downriver.
Navigation Square spans four associated buildings on a former warehouse 2.25 acre site previously owned by Eircom, as well as Cork City Council who used it for staff parking, and first cleared planning back in 2017, earmarked for c €90 million office development, being let by joint agents Savills and CBRE.
Earlier plans for it by O’Callaghan Properties included its proposed use as the city’s Events Centre, but OCP lost out in the bidding process to BAM and their site at South Gate Bridge …and which has yet to break ground.
Meanwhile, also set to move to the OCP-developed Navigation Square, to NS1, the largest of the development’s four blocks at 120,000 sq ft, is the Cork office of Jacobs Engineering, an Irish-based multinational engineering company with a 125-year history: Jacobs Engineering is expected to announce its move to the city centre from 2025 very shortly.
It’s due to relocate to NS1, now owned by French investors Corum who paid €60 million for the block in 2021.
Designed by Henry J Lyons Architects, Navigation Square 1 is anchored by Deutsche Börse Group, via its post-trade exchange services arm, Clearstream, and will bring NS1 close to full occupancy.
It’s not yet confirmed how much space Jacobs Engineering will take at Navigation Square but it started it search for Cork city centre offices seeking in excess of 10,000 sq ft and is likely to be committing to about that sort of quantum or a little bit more.
Letting agents for NS1/Corum are Lisney and BNP Paribas, who had been quoting headline rents of €35 psf. It's likely that BNP Paribas also is dealing with the OPW on the legal-based service it is seeking to find space for in Cork, in that service's first move/expansion out of Dublin.
Last week Jacobs Engineering put their current offices in suburban Mahon up for sale with a €4.5 million+ price tag via the Cork offices of Cushman & Wakefield.
Jacobs have 44,000 sq ft of offices at the entrance to Mahon Industrial Estate, with 165 car parking spaces on 4.9 acres and which is likely to be substantially redeveloped.
It’s located near Bessborough, and the immediate hinterland has already seen substantial residential developments – including high density apartment schemes - come and replace former more industrial/commercial uses.
Listing the Jacobs Engineering site at €4.5m+ Cushman & Wakefield director Siobhán Young said the departure of Jacobs Engineering provided “an immediate opportunity to rent the modern first-floor office accommodation while master-planning the remainder of this 4.9-acre site for a variety of uses including residential, health, education or hotel uses.”
Jacobs’ Mahon building was originally developed in the 1990s by Measurex, and had portions upgraded just five years ago.
Their move to the city centre comes after law firm RDJ relocated back to the South Mall in summer 2023 after a decade in City Gate, Mahon: RDJ took 18,000 sq ft in modern offices, vacated by Salesforce, at JCD Group’s 85 South Mall, where it joined KPMG.