Ireland's 'smartest building' opens on Albert Quay in Cork
Ralph Riegel Twitter
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Published
07/03/2016 | 11:32
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One Albert Quay
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One Albert Quay
IRELAND’S ‘smartest building’, the €60m One Albert Quay complex, was officially opened in Cork to serve as home to 500 workers and new global headquarters for a leading multi-national.
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Tyco are anchor-tenants for the largest office complex ever built outside Dublin and its availability underpinned a 500 job recruitment drive in 2014.
One Albert Quay, built by John Cleary Developments (JCD), was also designed to include the cutting-edge new ‘smart’ systems designed by Tyco.
Mr Cleary hailed the complex, located adjacent to Cork’s City Hall, as “the smartest building in Ireland.” High-tech computer systems allow the building operators to monitor a total of 12 different office functions.
These range from fire safety monitoring, security, asset tracking, energy efficiency, comfort levels, elevator operations, lighting systems and even ‘smart’ parking for workers and guests.
Tyco has now located its global headquarters in Cork and more than 500 employees will be based at One Albert Quay. The firm’s general manager, Donal Sullivan, said such ‘smart’ buildings are now critical to the future.
“We are thrilled with the building, it’s a wonderful place to work and it acts as a talent magnet for Tyco and the region generally,” he said.
“We have deployed the best Tyco technology from around the world to make this a truly smart building.”
“We get the opportunity to use the building as a test-bed for future development and it acts as a demonstrator location of Tyco’s offerings to our global client base.”
The building developer, John Cleary, said the complex represents a landmark in the type of facility that can now be offered to business clients.
“It was a very exciting and sophisticated project to work on,” he said.
“It really is a building that we can all be very proud of. It also is a great endorsement for the building to have Tyco on board as the anchor tenant here in One Albert Quay.”
Earlier this year, Tyco and Johnson Controls announced plans to merge and create a global leader in building products and technology, integrated solutions and energy storage.
The new Cork complex will be global headquarters for the combined firm. Tyco already employ 57,000 people across 50 countries worldwide.
JCD, which was founded 20 years ago, is currently working on a €50m commercial and retail redevelopment of the Capitol Cineplex city in Cork city centre.
Projects worth more than €350m are now underway in Cork including One Albert Quay, the €60m Cork events centre being built by BAM/Heineken on the old Beamish & Crawford site, the €3m facelift for Kent railway station, the €70m revamp of Pairc Ui Chaoimh GAA stadium, the €3.2m Irish Independent rugby stadium revamp and a €90m office complex at Albert Quay by Owen O’Callaghan.