When Oman Archive Storage opens its Bow Lane Depository in Dublin's Kilmainham next month, it will have spent more than £2.85 million on what managing director Hugh Walsh says is "the most modern, purpose-built document and multimedia storage facility in this country."

He further asserts that the Depository is "the only purpose built facility of its kind in Ireland - everyone else in the business has taken over buildings and converted them".

Work began on the Bow Lane Depository in March l998. The building will be completed by the end of this month, and fully operational by mid-August. Walsh is convinced of the "huge demand" for a facility such as this, and says that based on the company's past performance, they fully expect to get a return on their investment within three years.

With a floor area of some 56,000 sq ft of document and multi-media storage space - half of which has already been rented by the Bank of Ireland - the depository will have the capacity to accommodate more than 130,000 banker's boxes and has, in addition, a 2,000 sq ft multi-media vault. A state-of-the-art system will use RS Win - the latest in records management software - to remote access tenants' catalogues and track stored items. Access and egress is controlled by digitised swipe cards and tenants will have direct access to their own, separate locations. Privacy is assured, as is confidentiality.

A walk through the almost completed facility gives the sense of being caught up in a vast meccano set. Though the temperature is chilly right now, Walsh says it will be regulated when operational, and that the vault will be protected by the very latest in fire detection. He points out too that Bow Lane will be the "last document storage facility in a tax designated area in the city" and says that, as such, "the benefits to tenants will be considerable. Rents will be fixed for ten years, qualifying tenants will have double rent allowance tax relief and a ten year remission of rates".

Oman Archives Storage, which employs 15 people, is a partnership between Patrick Oman (of the Oman International Removal Company) and Ashley Mathews. Both were also involved in early Temple Bar developments. Hugh Walsh came on board when Jewelbury, a warehousing company on East Wall Road which was under his stewardship, was bought out by Oman in l991. "We moved on from pure warehousing to the storage of documentation and created an archive storage of roughly 40,000 sq ft," he explains. "We built in six modules and were able to gauge the demand for this type of facility when the second was sold before the first was occupied and the remaining four were let prior to completion."

The Bow Lane Depository is the result of the company's l997 decision to expand. Oman Archive Storage is a member of PRISM, the international organisation for Professional Records and Information Services Management.

Walsh is confident about the need for such a multi-media vault. "There's a huge paper mountain out there. Someone once said computers would make everything simple but what they've actually done is generate vast amounts of paper. Office space is at a premium in this city, so the trick is to get documentation and such off site and have it stored and managed by such as ourselves."