The Central Bank has initiated a search for a site to accommodate the development of a new cash-management facility.
The Irish Times understands that commercial real estate adviser Lisney has been engaged to secure a suitable 15-acre plot located within a 30-minute drive of Dublin Airport to facilitate the Central Bank’s planned move from its existing cash centre. While the plan is still in its early stages, Lisney sent a request for information to a number of commercial property agents last week with a view to drawing up a list of potential sites in Dublin and the greater Dublin area.
News of the move comes just weeks after The Irish Times reported on the Central Bank’s decision to sell the 37-acre site of its current facility at Sandyford in south Dublin.
Much of the Sandyford site has been zoned for residential and open space use under the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council 2022-2028 development plan. The land was also highlighted on a list of assets that could be available for social and affordable housing, after the Department of Housing directed every Government department last December to find public property suitable for the Coalition’s flagship Housing for All plan.
The Central Bank is also listed as a relevant public body with relevant public land in the law underpinning the Land Development Agency (LDA). The bank is on a list of bodies whose lands must be built out with 100 per cent social and affordable housing if they come under LDA control, thereby limiting the price at which such property would transfer to the agency.
The bank has been in Sandyford for more than four decades. The currency centre is a storage and distribution facility for bulk cash services, necessitating permanent Defence Forces protection and extensive surveillance. It stopped printing banknotes there in 2019 as euro notes are imported, but retains the facility to mint euro coins at the site.
In its most recent strategic review of its operations, the Central Bank is understood to have concluded that the existing building in Sandyford was nearing the end of its useful life and that a new facility would need to be developed.
