The launch of Limerick’s One Opera Square development should act as a blueprint for strategic partnerships between sovereign development funds and local government to unlock Ireland’s regional economic potential, the backers have said.
Barry O’Sullivan, chair of the ‘Treaty Stone Partnership’, a joint venture between the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) and Limerick Twenty Thirty DAC, said the €80m development, delivered on budget, demonstrates what can be achieved when local ambition is matched with the scale and strength of investment vehicles such as ISIF.
The six-storey office block in the heart of Limerick was launched by minister for finance Paschal Donohoe and co-hosted by Mayor of Limerick John Moran and Treaty Stone Partnership.
It comprises of 106,000sq ft of Grade A office space across five floors with capacity for 1,000 employees, three ground-floor retail/restaurant units and underground car parking.
Mayor of Limerick John Moran said: “We have big ambition in Limerick, to compete with other cities across Europe as the location choice for talent and business alike.
“To do that, we have to build a competitive offering in which to live, work and invest. Part of that is creating world-class workspaces and One Opera Square is a brilliant model for that.
“It’s built to the highest global sustainability and employee wellbeing standards and is already attracting considerable market interest, to an extent that we are very confident that it will deliver the investment envisaged.”
The commitment by ISIF is its biggest to date under its €500m regional city-specific investment programme launched three years ago to enhance the economic potential of Cork, Galway, Kilkenny, Limerick and Waterford and a cornerstone of ISIF’s investment strategy.
ISIF also recently announced an additional €500m commitment to this investment programme, bringing total funding for regional cities to €1bn.
For Limerick Twenty Thirty, which was established almost a decade ago to develop key strategic sites in Limerick as catalysts for economic growth, this is the completion of its first development in the transformational 3.7-acre Opera Square project in the city centre.