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THE OLD CENTRAL Bank headquarters on Dublin’s Dame Street will re-open today as the flagship Irish location for co-working space provider WeWork.
The property was the HQ of the Central Bank from 1979 to 2017, but has been closed since.
Global real estate investment firm Hines and Peterson acquired the site in 2017 and in 2022, redeveloped it into a mixed-use complex with offices, retail units, restaurants, and a two-story rooftop venue.
The building was leased to WeWork in 2018, and at that time it was envisaged that the company would be in the building before the end of 2019.
WeWork will be the main tenant of One Central Plaza, taking up office space totalling 73,000 square feet over eight floors in the building.
Across the eight floors, WeWork will house around 1,500 desks, as well as office suites and conference rooms.
At time of opening, WeWork One Central Plaza is at 50% occupancy.
WeWork has three other locations in Dublin, in Charlemont Exchange, 2 Dublin Landings, and Iveagh Court.
Minister for Enterprise Trade and Employment Peter Burke, said he is “delighted to see the opening of WeWork’s offices at Central Plaza”.
Meanwhile, WeWork’s chief revenue officer described Dublin as a “burgeoning business hub and a key market”.
He said today is a “significant moment” for WeWork as it “enters a new phase for the company”.
Last week, WeWork secured final court approval for its restructuring plan, paving the way for it to exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy next month.
This was seen as a crucial milestone for the once high-flying startup that had been weighed down by excessive lease obligations and unsustainable losses.
Under the restructuring, WeWork achieved more than a 50% reduction in long-term lease obligations, shaving off approximately $12 billion (€11b) in future commitments.
The company also eliminated over $4 billion (€3.7b) in debt from its balance sheet, emerging from bankruptcy debt-free.
The reorganization plan marks a dramatic turnaround for WeWork, which was once valued at a lofty $47 billion (€43.2b) before mounting losses and corporate governance concerns triggered a spectacular downfall in 2019.
The new plan also put an end to a bid by ousted WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann to buy the company.
Neumann was forced out of the company in 2019 with an exit package worth hundreds of millions of dollars, while the company’s value was slashed to $8 billion (€7.4b).
-With additional reporting from- © AFP 2024
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A huge missed opportunity in my opinion. Central Plaza plus a building taller than those around could have been some sort of rooftop viewing point of the city & perhaps a creative hub for Dublin. Our city needs a Mayor & an office with a vision and a passion for the capital.
@Gerry Kelly: There being a two storey rooftop venue sounded interesting.
The ffg mantra of selling state owned assets off obnoxiously wealthy individuals and not turning them into assets for the general irish public has been growing since the death of the celtic tiger
@Robert Halvey: grammar is not your friend
@donal O’brien: Punctuation is not your friend.
@donal O’brien: Capital “g” in grammar, full stop at the end of a sentence.
@Robert Halvey: Yup. Stunning example of brutalist architecture, so much opportunity for Dubliners, Tourists, anyone visiting the capital, I’m thinking of the high rise railway line in NYC that was reclaimed as a walkway, etc. And they’ve just flipped it to an Israeli-American company. In fairness, we’d never get it done ourselves, we’re just not able, too many stick in the mud types still alive, need several new generations to understand that saying no’ all time really leaves your services threadbare, we’re in the late years of this realisation, people look back on the last 20 and now understand that our elected officials really did nothing of value.
Chapter 11′s like this are always fascinating to me. A company once with a valuation of near 50bn$ down to being around 1bn$. Probably cutting more than half of it’s locations, and paying less rent to ones it retains, to get out of over 4bn$ of debt.
Seems like a fairly normal business strategy, though the former CEO made 100′s of millions of dollars, and the company has never made a profit.
I have a question that maybe someone can answer.
The Journal has a poll on banning fossil fuel advertising (and doesn’t permit comments on that article, hence my question here).
What difference would it make?
People do not decide to use gas for central heating on a day-day, week-week, month-month basis based on Bord Gais (or whatever company) advertising.
People do not decide to buy diesel (or petrol) for their cars based on advertising from Shell.
People do not decide to use more or less electricity based on advertising from the ESB, or Pinergy, or …
People use diesel (or petrol) for their cars because they have a diesel (or petrol) car.
People use electricity because they have an electrical supply to their home.
People use gas for central heating because they have a connection to the gas network.
So how would banning advertising affect any of this?
Is not the advertising used by companies to try to gain – or retain – customers for their BRAND?
Not their product.
So, my question again: what effect would banning fossil fuel advertising have on the overall consumption of these products?
Am I missing something?
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: It would have no effect, however, it would look like our politicians are doing something so it’s an easy win for them. Having said that, I did see an ad for an electricity provider with windmills and solar panels and it left me with such a warm feeling inside I decided to leave the immersion on for hours :-)
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: If anything, it harms consumers, and is counter intuitive to other goals some in gov have expressed.
A restaurant on top offering a fine view of the city would have been a splendid addition.
Am I the only one who thought the article thumbnail looked like a cookie?
@Daniel Skelton: Probably.
@Daniel Skelton: Crainn d’ór, the golden tree sculpture.
@Daniel Skelton: You mean a biscuit?
You’re giving yourself away.
Unlike it’s surroundings, centres for we don’t work.
@Padraig O’Brien: that would be OConnell and Talbot Street for the corporate headquarters of WeWontWork
Lmao! Can’t do it ourselves, so a Texan family dynasty are going to do it for us!
have your say