Hewlett Packard’s Leixlip manufacturing campus up for sale
Hewlett Packard’s Leixlip manufacturing campus is being brought to the market by agents CBRE, with the expectation from property industry sources that its sale could secure in excess of €60m.
The Liffey Park Technology Campus is described as a “world class technology and manufacturing complex” and is expected by CBRE executive director, Willie Norse, to be “one of the largest industrial and indeed overall property disposals in Ireland in recent years”.
Notwithstanding Hewlett Packard’s announcement last February of its intention to close its global print business in Leixlip and to make the facility’s 500 employees redundant, the North Kildare campus will continue to house a number of occupiers over the short to medium term.
According to CBRE, there is “tremendous potential and scope to increase the rent roll going forward from leasing of currently vacant accommodation”.
Interest in HP’s Leixlip campus is anticipated from a variety of occupiers and investors given the scale, quality and flexibility of the site. Given the complex’s existing 16 MVA electrical supply serving an onsite 110kV sub-station, CBRE believes the interest from data centre occupiers in particular will be significant.
Dublin has rapidly become a major data centre market in Europe, for both hyper-scale, self-build operators and also co-location entities. Based on CBRE’s analysis, Dublin was the third best performing data centre market in Europe in 2016.
Hewlett Packard’s extensive Leixlip campus is split into nine main buildings. Six of these are dedicated to high-quality manufacturing, clean room, warehouse and office use while the remaining buildings are used for ancillary and backup uses such as energy centres and canteen. The site also benefits from extensive Class 10,000 cleanrooms of approx. 11,150 sq m (120,000 sq ft) located within Building 7 of the campus.
The overall facility, which extends to a gross floor area of approximately 136,000 sq m (1.46 million sq ft), is located on a highly-serviced site of approximately 79 hectares (195 acres). The site configuration allows for an estimated 28 hectares (70 acres) of undeveloped land which offers potential for additional development of buildings (subject to planning permission).
