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- [00:04]
Iput Real Estate Narrator
I Put Real Estate is Dublin's leading property investment company. For almost 60 years a custodian of the city, embracing excellence in design, sustainability and occupier experience. More than that I Put understands that real change means transforming how valuable, vibrant and loved a neighborhood is. Discover how they build and invest. Head to I put.com now and and learn about their passion for their projects and their unique presence in Dublin. I Put Creator of exceptional places Custodian of the city.
- [00:52]
Andrew Tuck
Hello and welcome to a special edition of the Urbanist Monocle's programme all about the built environment. I'm your host Andrew Tuck. Coming up today we sit down with Niall Gaffney, the chief executive of iput, Dublin's leading property investment company. Over six decades, I Put has been dedicated to shaping the future of the city while playing a catalytic role across its economic, social, environmental and cultural life. With a long term perspective, the company has owned and developed the best workplaces in Ireland. Not only setting new benchmarks for the city, but attracting global capital and talent too. Niall stopped by our studios at Midori House in London to talk about his mission to create healthy, inspiring and fulfilling places. How design can enhance the public realm and also about IPUT's commitment to build communities. So join us for this special edition of the Urbanist with me, Andrew Tuck. Niall, thank you so much for coming in to see us. First of all, perhaps you could just explain to us a little bit about I put the scale of the company is a big player in Dublin and beyond and we'll talk about that in a minute. But just explain to us what I put does.
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Niall Gaffney
I put's been investing in Dublin for close to six decades now. To give you some context, the Dublin institutional real estate market in the central business district, let's say 14 million square feet. We would manage about 5 million square feet in our portfolio. We'd have about 10% of the grade A office market, as we'd call it, in the city centre. So we were a home for institutional capital back in the 60s, Trinity College, Guinness, all the way up to the present day. Now where 50% of our shareholders are overseas, the likes of Allianz, UBS, Seabury Global Investors. So we have a multinational ownership now. And so what we would try to do best describe ourselves would be we're a leader in commercial real estate in Dublin. Dublin's a gateway city between North America and the rest of the world. So IBIS had to compete for inward investment for the last 25 years in particular has been quite a competitive environment. We're a Small open economy, gateway city, as I said, but competing for major occupiers, major global occupiers and global capital. So IBIS had to become a very outward looking business.
- [03:17]
Andrew Tuck
It's fascinating what you do though, because that's the numbers, that's the scale of it. But when I begin to see the words that you attach to your business, I think that's where it becomes fascinating. One of the things that you, you say is that you're custodians of the city of Dublin. So I think it's always interesting when a developer actually begins to care about the place that they're developing and growing. Just tell me what that means, this notion of being a custodian for Dublin as well.
- [03:43]
Niall Gaffney
We see ourselves as stewards of neighbourhoods. You know, Dublin is an interesting city and it's evolved from, you know, quite a historical city over a thousand years. But you know, Georgian squares mixed in with very modern office precincts, mixed use developments. So what we tried to do is effectively take our role in the city seriously. When we go into a project, go into a refurbishment, go into a development, we'd like to leave it better than we found it. And we certainly see it's almost like a virtuous circle. We see a lot of value in creating something that attracts investors but also attracts occupiers, attracts people. It's very people led in terms of design, which has resulted in rapid leasing velocity for our schemes, which has seen a flow of investors, people interested in taking our space. So we have negligible vacancy. And that was the case throughout the pandemic, throughout the recovery, the economic cycles that we've been through. So our projects are sustainable both socially and environmentally and we're seeing premium rents being achieved for them. So it's back to that whole idea of competing at a global stage as a gateway city and a provider of gateway buildings for major occupiers. The likes of LinkedIn, Stripe, EY, Accenture, et cetera, occupy our buildings. We have to provide spaces that people want. And what we've noticed recently, and three major takeaways from our business is, you know, workplaces have evolved rapidly in the last five years, in the last decade. So too have cities and so too have the requirements of investors and occupiers. So we're responding to that by effectively recognizing that if you're in real estate today, you're in hospitality.
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Andrew Tuck
Well, there's a few things to unpack there. So tell me first of all the things that both investors and would be tenants are seeking now, because you've bought on millions of square feet of property just in the past 18 months. I know you have an incredible pipeline as well. Maybe you can give us those numbers. But what is bringing people to you, as you say, even in a market that's rapidly evolving with changing work patterns, for example?
- [05:47]
Niall Gaffney
Yeah, I mean, a challenging environment that we've seen for the workplace over the last 24 months in particular, we've let over a million square feet. We've done that through a combination of things, but the principal one is people LED design. And a small example would be a recent development that we've completed where we have let about 50,000 square feet to Mediolanum, an Italian based fund management business that has actually grown with us over the last decade from 40 people to where they are today, nearly 400 people. And what they were looking for was very livable, very environmentally friendly, but very much comfortable workspace for their people. And one simple thing they wanted was really high end gym. And the brand Technogym came to mind. Now I like a good treadmill as anybody else does, but Technogym in particular was something that they had an affinity with. They're an Italian brand, They're an Italian company, a brand. Big proportions of the workforce are Italian. So we respond to that. And this particular development that we have, it's about 100,000 square feet. We're spending about 5 million euros on putting in an amenity floor in the lower ground and ground floor, full time barista, an Auditorium for 120 people and a techno gym, fully equipped techno gym. And it's those little things that make a difference for people. So we're after leasing up that building within a three to six month period, we're achieving premium rents, but we're achieving it with happy occupiers. And that particular business has come with us over a decade, has grown from 2014 to 2025, where they are today. And to me that's a cornerstone of what we do. We listen, we respond, we're outward looking. So we're learning from other developers in places as diverse as New York. We've built a relationship with SL Green. We'd come to London, we'd meet great Portland, we see what they're doing with their flexible leasing model. So across that whole stratosphere of real estate in different cities and different scale cities, we're bringing the best of that back to Dublin and applying it to our own environment.
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Andrew Tuck
So many fascinating things there. First of all, let's pick up on this notion of hospitality because a gym is a version of hospitality as well as welcoming people into space. So in the past, a developer may have erected a building, may have had commercial units, they would have taken on somebody to let those. Of course they wanted some nice people in, they would pay the rent, but they weren't too particular as long as the cash was coming in. You've gone in a different direction because you're there. You've talked about a very specific case where you responded to need, but you've also attempted to bring in local partners and support them as they come in for food and drink and all sorts of other services that you're adding into your building.
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Niall Gaffney
Wilton park is a good example where we've a mixed use development. It's over 600,000 square feet, one of our biggest projects ever undertaken. And again, it was an opportunity to really think about what the ingredients of a good neighbourhood are. The workplace is a part of it, but it's part of a neighbourhood. So trying to be a catalyst for creativity in a neighbourhood, there's various ingredients in that. And when you think of your typical streetscape, you, food and beverage, you've got culture, you've got art, you've got good design, you've got stimulation. So in Wilton park we were very fortunate that we had a one acre park that we had the opportunity to restore and literally put the water back into the fountain, the Victorian fountain. But let the park be a park and let people experience it, explore it, don't over curate it. We've put some sculpture in the park, we've built new street walkways and highlighted aspects of culture from the neighborhood. We've celebrated local writers in the neighborhood and brought them back to life by naming the square after local writer Mary Lavin. And all of these ingredients fed into what was happening around the buildings as much as what was happening inside the buildings. The pieces of hospitality within the buildings, as you refer to, like gyms, scent, music, you can curate that, but it's what people experience on their walk to the workplace or their social life afterwards, their meeting places in the local bakery. So we're presently now about to complete a number of transactions where we're going to bring in an artisan bakery into the scheme. Some innovative food and beverage offerings, along with hopefully a new restaurant and all of that will bring life to the place. But ultimately you have to strike that balance between what is a real community experience, which again forms by itself evolves. So for us it's about treating these neighbourhoods like a living canvas. You know, you can only do so much and if you're A good actor and catalytic in your approach, it can bring real value. And for us, financial returns and being socially aware are not mutually exclusive. If anything, one feeds the other, that virtuous circle where if you create a place that's really attractive by definition, people keep coming back for us, people keep paying rent, the rent flows become long term, it attracts capital, it sustains itself. And to me that's a key cornerstone of our philosophy.
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Andrew Tuck
Because again, you're touching on words. I think that for many it'll be a surprise at the top of mind for you as a developer. You talk about making places where people kind of love going to, that there's a lovability to them. You're hinting there the need for an emotional connection to the spaces we go to now again, when people think about developers, especially for office space, for example, they may realize you're worried about connectivity. And especially if you have a bank or a financial institution in there, those things are of course going to be important value. You want to be delivering value to your shareholders. But do these softer sides come into the urbanism and the developing that you're doing, then the notion that they are lovable, that you have an emotional connection to these places?
- [11:15]
Niall Gaffney
Yes, in short, I think they do. Because that emotional connection that you have with buildings, that emotional connection that you have with places, if one was to think of their favorite square in London or favorite place in Paris or in Dublin, you know, where you meet people as you grew up, you know, you have an emotional attachment to that and it resonates in the same context. If you are going to spend three or four days a week in a workplace, you have to develop some form of connection with that or you will move on, you'll go to the next place that you can relate to. So I think the relatability of all this is key. And what we feel as a developer, as an investor, what in a competitive environment makes us different. So when you stand back from us, are thinking through the various elements that we just touched on, like culture, food and beverage design, what makes our development different, what makes it better, how do we differentiate ourselves? So for me, I think trying to elicit and provide the opportunity for people who use our buildings to develop an emotional connection is what we strive to achieve. Don't force it. The best outcomes tend to come when it happens naturally. So if someone relates to Wilton park, for instance, where we developed a relationship with the local authority and the public body that looked after the local canal, we invested over a two year period in upgrading works in that canal, we widened the footpaths, put in gravel instead of tarmac, put in nice modern contemporary seating allied with refurbishing the existing Victorian seating. That place has become an attractive place without doing anything. Once we opened it, it's full of people, people are talking about it, there's a buzz in the neighbourhood. The fact that our adjoining development sits next door is by happenchance, but we've done it deliberately because we want people to gravitate to that location. So for me, success for Wilton park is children playing in the fountain or people hang out at the weekends. So it becomes a seven day week place to go. But it becomes a place, not just a workplace, not just a campus. You know, the word campus always leaves me cold, particularly in a city centre context. So I think for me and for my team, Wilton park becoming a recognizable place in local parlance in a city like Dublin would be a major achievement, would be a legacy that we'd be proud of.
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Andrew Tuck
And you've hinted at that with the parkland and the sculpture and the use of cultural programming just coming back to this other huge topic for every developer. But you're running ahead of the pack when it comes to sustainability. You're trying to not just meet targets, you have your own targets for when you want to be hitting CO2 targets that you've set for yourselves, but you're trying to be thought leaders in this space to pull up the whole city again. When you come to investors, maybe I imagine some investors say, oh, just do what's needed and go at the pace of the market. Or maybe not. But how come you're running ahead of the market?
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Niall Gaffney
In a way, it's a competitive world and I think being sustainable, both socially, environmentally and economically is something that we strive to do. And one example of that recently was we launched a logistics park and we've speculatively built the first two units and that park has been promoted as an Article 9 fund. And we have a major Dutch investor that committed substantial capital to that development. It's the first investment they've done in three years in Europe. So we've achieved something special there, but with that investor on this project. And the first two units that we're building are built from timber, so they're cross laminated timber warehouses of about 150,000 square feet in size. But that's a demonstration in real terms of our commitment to being a sustainable developer and that this is the direction of travel, whether we like it or not. Despite the Brewho ha in recent times from the U.S. major corporates want to shift towards sustainable real estate. It aligns with our but also aligns with their customers values. It aligns with their staff, their values. It's much more attractive place to work. It's also much more sustainable building in terms of energy consumption, et cetera. So again, gets back to that point of having a virtuous circle in investment. It can be done. We are going to achieve premium rents for these buildings. We're also going to take our investors with us and we're doing it in a way that is leading in Europe and is a differentiator for us. So it gets back to that competitive world that we're in. We keep trying to find and identify ways of innovating both locally and taking that to a global market. And that logistics example is one that we believe will prove to be quite successful.
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Andrew Tuck
And the question of longevity is always a complicated one for developers. But does this allow your projects to be robust for the future as well? Because I guess that many people who are business owners, business managers, they look at assets on there and they're concerned about things that aren't meeting targets. Because you are creating value as well. And that's an important part of your role. Is that key to that achievement is being aware of lead certification, for example?
- [16:07]
Niall Gaffney
Yeah. I mean, we've for five years in a row had five star grasp rating across our entire portfolio, both investments and developments. And that's critical to major investors who support us over the years, like the Dutch investors, in particular Scandinavians, they want to see that commitment to being a sustainable investor globally. But certainly, I think in terms of buildings and their duration, what we've been doing the last number of years is recycling buildings. So buildings that have good bones, that are built, built to last, you can recycle the facades, you can recycle the interiors, if the bones of the building, if the frame is built appropriately. So we're ensuring that existing buildings that we're designing and building will endure. We can then go back in and retrofit them in 20 years time or 30 years time, as the case may be. So a big proportion of what we do is recycling buildings. And if the bones are good, you can recycle them. And I think it's critical that you get those underlying aspects of design right at the outset.
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Andrew Tuck
Let's bring the conversation back to where we started about I put what's the ambition for you, for the company, as you look to the years ahead? You're custodians of Dublin, you're benchmarking with the best in the world. What do you hope for both I put and for Dublin over the years.
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Niall Gaffney
Ahead, I'd like to think we endure for another 60 years. I'd like to see us as a catalytic developer in our city. The fact that Dublin's a gateway city, we're taking what we have done locally to a global market, and to be recognised for that by continuing to sustain this business over the next decade or two would be a great outcome for me because we've seen so much volatility put in the evolution of cities, workplaces and indeed investors requirements that a period of stability. We crave for that now. And I think Dublin's in a place where for the first time in many decades, it's a sustainable city to invest in. We have a very diverse ownership base. It's a very international city. So for me, if I can play a role in taking that local gateway city to a wider global audience, that would be an achievement.
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Andrew Tuck
And finally, if you don't mind, perhaps a personal question for you, Niall. When you walk around, some of the projects have completed in recent years and you see the tenants and you see the lineup of hospitality players that have come in, I'm sure, like everybody's job, there are days when you're looking at screens and numbers, but when you get out there and you see what you've built, what's been built by Iput, what puts a smile on your face, what makes you feel a job well done? When you see projects, what's the bit of magic you see at play that makes you think, okay, this is what we're about.
- [18:35]
Niall Gaffney
It's a real privilege to lead a team of people that has created spaces in the city that are impactful. And when you see a completed project like Wilton park and you walk through it on an afternoon and you just see whether it's people dwelling, reading about the artwork, reading about the place, or stopping and taking a photograph of the gardens that we've planted and curated, you get a kick out of that because it's making a difference to people who are not in my walk of life, who are not in the workplace, just normal people enjoying the city. And we've played a part in that.
- [19:06]
Andrew Tuck
Well, Niall, fascinating to talk to you and. And what a pleasure to hear about somebody who cares so deeply about the business, which makes us all excited, the businesses we're in, but also about this notion of building communities and stepping beyond the threshold of the front door to take care of your city. Thank you for joining us.
- [19:24]
Niall Gaffney
Thank you, Andrew.
- [19:28]
Andrew Tuck
And that's all for this week's special episode of the Urbanist in partnership with iput. Make sure to subscribe to the podcast to receive episode two when it comes out later this month. We'll be in Dublin then to Explore some of IPUT's key developments including One Wilton park and hear more about their mission to develop spaces with quality of life at their forefront. The Urbanist is produced by Carlotta Rebelo and by David Stevens, who also edits the show. I'm Andrew Tuck. Goodbye and thank you for listening. City Lovers.
- [20:17]
Iput Real Estate Narrator
Iput Real Estate is Dublin's leading property investment company. For almost six decades they've owned and developed the best workplaces in Ireland, setting standards and attracting global capital to the Irish market market. As a gateway to Europe, Dublin is a global center for investment. I put leads the market by delivering innovative design led workplaces and public spaces that enhance the occupier experience and neighborhood life. Their ambition? To set new benchmarks in workplace quality, attract leading businesses to Dublin, all while delivering strong, sustainable returns for their investors. Find out how they're building this Future. Head to iper.com now. IPUT, creator of Exceptional Places, Custodian of the City.