Amazon in talks for new 750-worker Dublin office despite virus

Amazon is in talks to rent an office block in Dublin with space for about 750 workers.

The online retail giant is in negotiations to lease the 2 Burlington Plaza office block in central Dublin, said a person who asked not to be identified as the information is private. The 75,000 sq ft building is currently occupied by Bank of Ireland.

Should Amazon go ahead with the deal, which is not yet certain, it may help assuage concerns about the impact of the coronovirus crisis on Dublin’s real estate market, which is in part underpinned by US firms. Demand for office space in the city fell 21% in the first quarter of the year compared to the last three months of 2019, according to CBRE.

Twitter will allow employees to work from home permanently, while Facebook and Alphabet’s Google unit do not expect most staff to return to the office until 2021. All three have offices in Dublin.

Amazon employed about 2,500 people in Ireland at the end of 2018, according to the most recent accounts available for its Irish business, and said it would hire 1,000 more people in June 2018. The company already has offices nearby in the Burlington Plaza complex and is in the process of setting up its first fulfilment centre in Ireland on the outskirts of the city.

Bloomberg

READ MORE

Online shopping and level of savings reach record levels in Ireland, amid lockdown