TWO ADJOINING period buildings at Herbert Street and Herbert Lane in Dublin 2 are likely to be of interest to cash-rich investors and developers when they are offered for sale from today through Savills.

Donal Kellegher of the agency is seeking €4.5 million for the buildings, one of them freehold and the other held under a lease with 10 years to run.

The well located buildings being sold by Cheshire Ireland have been used as a residential home for people with special needs over the past 40 years. They were donated to Cheshire Ireland by Elizabeth Barrett who had run a nursing home there for many years. Cheshire is to replace the residential facilities with alternative housing in a number of community areas.

The two buildings are interlinked and have been fairly drastically adapted and extended over the years to provide comfortable accommodation for the residents.

Number 20 Herbert Street, a four-storey over basement freehold building, has 346sq m (3,724sq ft) and a mews fronting on to Herbert Lane.

Number 21 Herbert Street, the leased property, has 524sq m (5,640sq ft) of space and is a south-west facing four-storey bay windowed house.

There is also a modern single storey extension to the side and rear with a floor area of 226sq m (2,433sq ft).

Savills says a purchaser may opt to keep the two buildings in residential use and possibly reinstate number 20 as a stand-alone entity with mews. Number 21 could either be converted into offices or used for residential purposes and there is obvious potential to develop another mews house to the rear.