Paddy McKillen Jr’s Oakmount sells Thomas St building for over €13m

Paddy McKillen Jr’s hospitality business, Press-Up Group, operates John’s Bar & Haberdashery on the ground floor of the property

Donal Buckley

Wed 12 Oct 2022 at 03:30

Oakmount, headed by Paddy McKillen Jr, has sold a fully let, mixed-use building in Dublin city for around €13.4m. That’s a discount of about €1.3m on its €14.75m asking price.

Mr McKillen Jr’s hospitality business, Press-Up Group, operates John’s Bar & Haberdashery on the ground floor of the property, Sixty One Thomas Street, Dublin 8.

Located next to the Vicar Street music venue and across the street from the National College of Art and Design, the 16,614 sqft property also includes four fully-let floors of grade-A office accommodation and is generating total annual rent of €810,228.

Tenants include Lumen Technologies, Digitize New Media and McCann Advertising and the WAULT lease term averages about seven years.

It also provides secure basement car and bike parking for its tenants.

Part of the building dates from the 1600s when it was one of Dublin’s finest purpose-built inns, The Golden Last. With McKillen’s penchant for repurposing historic buildings, Oakmount’s redevelopment included preserving the fabric of the original building as well as documenting 4,000 artefacts uncovered by an archaeological excavation. Those artefacts are now with the National Museum.

Consequently it was Highly Commended for the Adaption and Re-Use category in the RIAI Architecture Awards 2021.

Knight Frank acted for the vendor and Lisney for the purchaser.

Among its features which appeal to office tenants are its steel frame with a concrete core as it provides for efficient column-free floor plates. The frame sets back from the fifth floor to create an outdoor penthouse terrace to the perimeter of the building offering panoramic views of the surrounding cityscape and beyond.

Thomas St is part of a key tourist trail which runs from Trinity College to Temple Bar, Christ Church Cathedral, Guinness Storehouse, a number of local distilleries and Royal Hospital Kilmainham with its Museum of Modern Art and Kilmainham Gaol.

It is also located in the historic Liberties area with a population of about 23,000 people, many of them living in newly built student accommodation. With a further 3,000 apartments in the pipeline, the population is expected to grow.