Joshua Dawson House is a five-storey over basement Grade A office building in Dawson Street in Dublin. The street is a vibrant mixed-use location in the Central Business District, featuring offices, retail outlets, bars and restaurants, as well as the Mansion House (where the Lord Mayor lives). Trinity College Dublin is a short walk away and the other three universities in Dublin are all within six kilometers.
Background
The building is owned by Dublin City Council and has a net internal area of 1,486 sq m (16,000 sq ft). It is now home to two very different tenants: Dentons, one of the world’s largest law firms, and Nuritas, an Irish biotech company. Prior to these tenants moving in, a fund manager occupied Joshua Dawson House.
Nuritas, founded in 2014 by Dr.Nora Khaldi, uses data mining of natural sources to identify new health benefiting molecules. Before moving to Joshua Dawson House, its operations were split between two locations in Dublin, one in the city centre and the other on the campus of University College Dublin, which lies five kilometres (three miles) to the south. The company wished to bring their activities and staff together in one location, which is often the case when a company moves from start-up to scale-up status.
Nuritas combines life sciences, artificial intelligence and natural ingredients and the company harnesses the synergy between these elements to make life-changing discoveries. Therefore, the design of the building needed to foster and enhance the relationship between these three very different groups, because successful integration of these different fields was and is key to the company’s business. In addition to these functional requirements, the building at the same time was intended to be a home away from home for employees and somewhere very desirable to work.
Specific needs
Before Nuritas could move into the building the company had to undertake some major internal changes to make it suitable.For example, distinct types of laboratory space were needed on the ground and first floors and within the laboratories there are varying types of specialised equipment. Some of the equipment is noisy (requiring sound proofing hardware), some of it generates heat (requiring air conditioning) and some of it is sensitive to vibrations (requiring specially designed benches). Some of the units are very bulky and not possible to move around in a standard lift, which required the temporary removal of one window to move them into place. Gas lines are needed to supply carbon dioxide, nitrogen and oxygen to certain locations within the labs. Fume extraction is needed too, which requires the installation of fume hoods and associated ducting.
There was also provision for additional plant installation, several meeting rooms, and a significant amount of open-office space. The building has its own backup generator to guarantee uninterrupted power supply.
Extra power needed
As part of the building’s conversion, Nuritas informed the property owner that thecompany required 330 KVA power load to the building to facilitate their laboratory operation. The electricity supplier,ESB Networks requires a separate substationfor loads in excess of 200 KVA, therefore Nuritas requested permission from the Council for the ESB to install a sub-station at Joshua Dawson house. Dublin City Council, as landlord,agreed to facilitate the installation of the ESB substation by granting a 999-year lease over an area of 16.7 sq m (180 sq ft) tucked in between the Mansion House and Joshua Dawson House.Lease terms
Nuritas and the landlord (Dublin City Council) have a 20-year full repairing and insuring lease with upward or downward rent reviews to market rent on each fifth anniversary of the commencement of the term.The tenant has a break option at the end of the 10th year of the term with 12 months prior written notice to the council.The tenant agreed to refurbish the space at its own expense,though the landlord contributed a 10-month rent-free period towards the refurbishment and upgrade.Reinstatement
Under the terms of the lease, the tenant is liable for full reinstatement of the lab back to office space,at lease expiry, or sooner.The landlord will also require the tenant to have obtained planning permission to convert the lab space back to office use prior to lease termination.Insurance
The lease is on a full repairing and insuring basis; however, the landlord arranges the insurance cover and then gets reimbursed by the tenant. To cater for the new laboratories,extensive construction works were completed including new chillers, plant and liquid nitrogen cages within the basement.Planning laws
The building had planning permission for use as offices but because the incoming tenant Nuritas needed to convert part of the property into lab space a change of use was required and this was facilitated by the landlord, Dublin City Council which granted the tenant a letter of consent for planning permission prior to the receipt of statutory approvals.Bringing it all together
Logistically, the project was extremely challenging, requiring crane lifts and delivery off-loading from the adjacent St Stephen’s Green park. Road crossings across a live tram line were introduced & allowing the restaurant next door to keep trading during the busy Christmas period was also critical. The entire project required a team which included architects (Diarmuid Reil Architects), quantity surveyors (MacMinn O’Reilly Mahon),services engineers (Synergy Engineering), contracts (Ardmac) and more. Michelle McCarthy of Nuritas project managed the conversion and move and she succeeded in getting all equipment out of their two prior locations and installed in Joshua Dawson House in the space of one week. The move required meticulous planning to make sure that the equipment needed at the time, and into the future, could be accommodated.
