Schering-Plough plant for sale

Pharmaceutical giant Schering-Plough is selling its plant on 13.79 acres in Bray, Co Wicklow

Pharmaceutical giant Schering-Plough is selling its plant on 13.79 acres in Bray, Co Wicklow

AN EXTENSIVE pharmaceutical plant on 13.79 acres at Bray, Co Wicklow, is to be offered for sale at €7.5 million through agent Jones Lang LaSalle.

The plant has been owned by a number of pharmaceutical companies over the past 30 years and is currently being run down by Schering-Plough – the same firm which announced last week that it is to cut 160 jobs at its operation in Brinny, Co Cork.

The manufacturing facility extends to 15,514sq m (167,000sq ft) and, according to the company, may be of interest to pharmaceutical and research and development firms after getting the approval of the US-based Federal Drugs Administration.

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The plant comprises two separate manufacturing units – one for sterile production, the other for non-sterile production – as well as a number of support laboratories and warehouses, waste water treatment, informational technology and office facilities. The overall complex is set out in various blocks across the 13.79-acre site with extensive frontage onto Boghall Road.

Also included in the sale is an undeveloped six-acre site with frontage onto the Bray Southern Cross route.

The plant is located about one kilometre from the N11 which provides direct access to Dublin city. The entire site is zoned Objective C under the current Bray town council development plan which encourages future development of office or industrial units.

The selling agents say that a purchaser may have the opportunity to redevelop some or all of the existing complex while obtaining planning permission for the future development of the additional six-acre site. The complex is due to be vacated in the third quarter of 2011.

Nigel Healy of Jones Lang LaSalle says the €7.5 million asking price represents “a great value opportunity even in todays testing market conditions”.

It was a drastically different business climate when the computer giant Dell set about selling off its 7,432sq m (80,000sq ft) former plant on 9.5 acres also on Boghall Road in November, 2006.

Savills negotiated a sale at €30 million but, not surprisingly, the new owner’s identity has never been disclosed.

Jack Fagan

Jack Fagan

Jack Fagan is the former commercial-property editor of The Irish Times