The Irish arm of Deloitte has signed the lease for its new headquarters building at 1 Adelaide Road, Dublin 2.

The move will consolidate its operations in the city within a single building rather than the four Dublin offices across which its staff currently work, and in confirming the lease, Deloitte chief executive Harry Goddard described the decision as a “significant milestone” for the company in Ireland.

It also follows EY’s recent decision to locate its new base at Iput Real Estate’s Wilton Park development.

Deloitte Ireland employs about 3,000 staff, and after a lengthy search, Deloitte announced that it had chosen Irish Life Assurance’s building at Adelaide Road as its preferred location for a new headquarters last year. At the time, Goddard said that the office would have space for 1,450 desks, while the firm has about 2,500 staff in Dublin.

“We are focused on creating an environment for increased collaboration and connection, and the office will facilitate that through workspaces and more open collaboration zones,” he said at the time.

The Irish Life site, formerly occupied by AIB, was chosen from a shortlist of three properties for the new headquarters and will provide about 160K SF of office space for Deloitte.

Work began in June with the demolition of the existing office development on the Dublin 2 site. The new building will include offices, retail, a cafe and a community facility. The structure will range in height from four storeys at the back, then a setback of six to eight storeys and a nine to ten-storey setback at the entrance, facing Harcourt Road and Adelaide Road.

Irish Life Assurance put forward plans for the new office in January 2023 and Dublin City Council gave the go-ahead for the €49M redevelopment in June of the same year.

Deloitte, one of the four biggest accounting agencies, currently pays a blended rate of about €55 per SF for its existing office space across a number of buildings in the city.