Activity in the office leasing market is likely to pick-up in the coming months on the back of demand from the State, as deadlines for complying with its ESG agenda and carbon emissions reductions move closer.
This is according to property advisor Savills Ireland, who said that 266,000 square feet of office take-up across 38 deals took place in the first quarter of this year.
City centre stock was the most popular among occupiers in the three months from January to March and accounted for 66% of take-up across 24 deals.
Two of the three largest deals took place in Dublin 1 and 2, while the suburbs accounted for 32% of total take-up and the city fringe made up only 2%.
Today's figures show the largest letting of the quarter was DataDog's relocation from 13-18 City Quay to One and Two Dockland Central, where it took 44,000 sq ft across the two buildings.
This represented a 28,000 sq ft increase in the cloud computing company's Dublin footprint and the deal drove the share of space taken by tech to 57%.
The second biggest transaction was Pinterest's take up of 28,000 sq ft of Grade A space at 60 Dawson Street, followed by Virtual Access with 25,500 sq ft taken at Parkwest.
Together with DataDog, the three deals accounted for 36% of total activity in the quarter.
Financial services company Scotia Bank also took 21,200 sq ft at Three Park Place in preparation for an expansion to new offices.
This helped to increase the financial services sector's share of take-up to 22%, which was up from 17% a year earlier.
Andrew Cunningham, Director of Office Agency, said that Savills expect the first half of 2023 to be characterised by relatively softer activity after last year's absorption of pandemic-related pent-up demand.
"However, the State is likely to support demand in the year ahead as deadlines for its ESG agenda and carbon emissions reductions continue to approach," Mr Cunningham said.
"In addition, revisions to the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive will require both the public and private sectors to accelerate their sustainability efforts, necessitating further activity in the market," he added.
Figures released by the Office of Public Works last year revealed just one of 238 office buildings occupied by Government Departments and agencies has achieved an A rating for energy efficiency.
