Athlumney House, a large Georgian mansion, is being converted into modern offices that developers expect will attract the kind of high tech companies which will replace jobs lost in the once-dominant local furniture industry. Jack Fagan reports.

A large Georgian mansion that once marked the town boundary of the 40,000-acre Somerville Estate near Navan is presently being restored and converted into modern offices to accommodate a new generation of business and industry.

Athlumney House, once one of the great houses of Meath until its vast rooms became unmanageable, is set to become one of the symbols of a new business era in a town that is now one of the fastest growing in the country.

The house and its modern wing standing high over the River Boyne less than two miles from the town form the centre-piece of an IDA Business Park that offers the prospects of a high tech industrial era to replace a fast contracting furniture industry that once employed most of the men in the town.

Athlumney House is being pitched mainly at international companies looking for an elegant Irish headquarters. The main offices will be located in the former mansion which has a floor area of 806 sq m (8,675 sq ft) but there will be a further 1,851 sq m (20,000 sq ft) of high quality space available in a modern two-storey extension.

Since opening seven years ago, the park has attracted six new industries - the latest arrival is the Lir chocolate factory which relocated from East Wall in Dublin - and though two of these have since closed down, there are immediate prospects of a replacement industry moving in.

There has also been a significant pick-up in the level of inquiries about the park from international investment companies looking at Ireland and from Dublin-based companies considering relocating to an area with a good labour pool and lower overhead costs.

With office space in Athlumney House available at around €140 per sq m (€13 per sq ft) - about half the cost of similar space in the Dublin suburbs - and several other office developments under way in Navan, Ashbourne, Trim and Kells, a carefully targeted campaign is being mounted to attract new industry and business to the county. A survey by Meath County Council has shown that there are over 20,000 daily commuters to the city who would prefer to work locally.

Most of these have undoubtedly been influenced by the atrocious traffic congestion on the main roads between Meath and city. The daily trek to work in the city has been getting worse month after month. Travel between Navan and Dublin in early morning now takes over two hours compared to less than an hour a decade ago.

Many couples with jobs in Dublin who bought houses in Navan because of lower selling prices have sold up and moved back to the city frustrated by the ever longer commuting times.

All this is hardly surprising considering that Meath has the fastest growing population outside the Dublin. Resident numbers grew by over 22 per cent in the six years up to 2002 to reach 134,000. And current projections are that that figure will increase to 180,000 by 2012.

Rather than having a great deal of these people commuting to work in Dublin city, Meath Co Council has embarked on a major plan to "create a sustainable local economy within the county". In other words, to find jobs locally for the commuters.

Frank Fitzmaurice, economic development officer with the council, says the alternative - to see Meath simply become one big commuter county, a dormitory for city-based workers - "is just not palatable". Apart from the office facilities under construction in the main towns, the planners have also zoned over 1,700 acres for offices and industry in the county that will offer a significantly lower cost base than a few miles up the road in Dublin.

The success of Meath's new economic strategy will ultimately depend on whether the authorities deliver urgently needed infrastructural improvements. While any worthwhile improvement in the transport systems will obviously be a boon for coomuters, these changes are also essential to attract new industry to the county.

The questions now being asked are - will the N3 motorway from Dublin to Navan and Kells be built by 2009 as planned? And will the Navan-Dublin railway service be reinstituted as promised by the politicians? The county council believes the present shortcomings will ultimately be overcome.

Public sceptism is understandable because the traffic chaos in Navan and other areas stems in the first instance from shortsighted policies by the same council which allowed vast housing estates to be built without first putting in improved infrastructure.

As recently as three years ago, a Special Development Zone was created on the outskirts of Navan to develop commuter homes even though the town's narrow streets were already seriously congested.

County planners now have another chance to deliver a workable plan that will both facilitate commuters as well as attracting much-needed industry to Navan.