DUBLIN, Nov 10 (Reuters) - New office space planned forDublin over the next five years can comfortably accommodate morethan 100,000 extra workers and any companies relocating as aresult of Brexit, a survey from real estate group Savills published on Thursday, said.
Ireland has called its key trading partner's plans to leavethe European Union the greatest economic and social challenge ithas faced in 50 years, so the potential to attract businessesfrom Britain could help to offset some of the damage.
Already the European home for the likes of Facebook,Google and Microsoft, Dublin is competingwith some major European Union cities for potential Brexitinvestment. Government officials have sought to assure companiesthat commercial development has recovered from a property crashthat wrecked the sector in 2008.
Construction in Dublin ground to a halt from 2010 to 2014,but now almost 150 new office blocks are either underconstruction, have received planning permission or are in theplanning stages, Savills' survey found. More than 12 millionsquare feet (1.1 million square metres) of office space isplanned for Dublin.
"Companies have begun to seriously develop strategies todeal with Brexit. As Dublin's pipeline is increasing, it islikely the market will be able to cater comfortably for anypick-up in demand that may result," Savills said.
But the surge in commercial development is in stark contrastto a shortage of housing that could hurt the prospects forinvestment from companies seeking to relocate staff to Ireland.
A survey on Tuesday showed residential rents, already atrecord highs, are rising at the fastest pace in over a decade.
The Savills' survey showed that unlike the credit-fuelledproperty crash, most of the commercial development is beingfunded by Real Estate Investment Trusts, such as Green REIT, foreign funds with large balance sheets or privateequity firms.
Ireland's National Asset Management Agency (NAMA), thestate-run "bad bank" set up in 2009 to rid banks of troubledproperty loans, is funding nine percent of all schemes in fulland another five percent through joint ventures.
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin. Editing by Jane Merriman)