The five-acre FAAC Electronics Factory and Warehouse site has been sitting derelict for 15 years and is a stark reminder of the Irish property crash that occurred in the 2000’s.
In 2006, after FAAC shut down their Sandyford operations and moved to Citywest, the site was sold for €110 million to Lalco/Brackville Holdings (€20m per acre). This was one of the most expensive property deals ever made in the history of the Sandyford Industrial are, made possible after AIB and Ulster Bank “loaned” €25 million to Lalco.
Lalco wanted to develop 800 apartments, a 190-bedroom hotel and 260,000 sq ft of commercial space on the site – a project estimated to have a gross development value of more than €500m.
However, as with the other thousands of other massive property deals that the banks fraudulently “loaned” money to, Lalco’s fancy development plans were scrapped as soon as the property crash hit.
Over the next 10 years, Lalco/Brackville Holdings tried to unburden themselves of the site but ran into obvious trouble considering no one could afford to buy land at such a ludicrous price during the crash.
By 2017, the price for the site was sitting at a fraction of its original cost and Aldgate Developments acquired it for €10 million (€2.35 million per acre). Additionally, over half an acre was sold to the Railway Procurement Agency to accommodate a section of the Green Luas line.
Based on the €10 million selling price on top of the €16.5 million secured for the railway line, Lalco endured a 91% fall in valuation even before interest rates and transaction fees were taken into account.
As of today, the future of the former FAAC site is unknown.
