Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, GIC, and logistics specialist Valor Real Estate Partners completed the biggest transaction in the Irish market in the first half of 2026 when they bought Horizon Logistics Park in Swords, north Dublin.

At €500M, the Horizon deal was one of the largest single-property deals ever agreed in Ireland, and its completion capped a revival in Ireland’s industrial and logistics market.

And the deals won’t end there. The stalled sale of a portfolio owned by EQT means another €240M of real estate is potentially up for grabs, and Kennedy Wilson and Ares are back in the frame, after Baupost pulled out.

With pent-up occupier demand and little new supply, investors are hungry for existing assets, especially those that come with development land. And developers are starting to push the button on new construction

CBRE recorded just under 2.6M SF of Dublin industrial and logistics take-up in 2025, up 62% on 2024 and the strongest annual performance in several years.

Prime rents reached €14.25 per SF at the end of the year, and although the start of 2026 was slower, occupational activity rebounded strongly in the second quarter, taking H1 space take-up to 1.18M SF. Vacancy remains low, at around 3.5% to 4%.

Modern space is what is in demand. Savills data showed that 60% of Q2 take-up involved buildings constructed since 2020, up from 50% in Q1 and 37% at the end of 2025, and logistics operators increasingly want higher clear heights, greater automation capability, larger yards and more efficient buildings. Average clear heights in Dublin warehouses have risen from about 12 metres in 2018 to a projected 14 metres this year.

“There is still good activity, and a subsector to watch would be pharmaceuticals, with temperature-controlled logistics,” Colliers Head of Research Kate Ryan added of the emerging picture.

Not surprisingly, the Horizon campus has grabbed this year’s headlines. Comprising about 1.8M SF of logistics space alongside a substantial development landholding, close to Dublin Airport, the M50 and the Port Tunnel, the scheme has occupiers including DHL, Kuehne+Nagel, Bunzl and Fastway. Horizon has about 300 acres of zoned industrial land, with the original sale process highlighting around 2M SF of consented development potential.

GIC was not alone in pursuing the asset. KKR, Aermont Capital, EQT, Deka Immobilien and Kennedy Wilson were among the groups that showed interest during the sales process.

Little wonder: BNP Paribas Real Estate has warned that the lack of industrial-zoned land, particularly in southwest Dublin, will keep near-term supply constrained. For investors, that makes existing campuses with expansion potential considerably more attractive than standalone warehouses.

Horizon is not the only large transaction offered up. The most obvious potential follow-on is EQT Real Estate’s Irish logistics portfolio, which is also backed by GIC. It comprises 32 assets totalling about 1.3M SF, including properties in Greenogue Business Park and Baldonnell Business Park.

The portfolio was initially being marketed at around €240M, and Baupost secured exclusivity to acquire the properties before pulling out after seeking to reduce its offer. Ares Management and Kennedy Wilson, which had previously bid for the assets, have since reemerged as potential buyers.

However, it is also possible that GIC may now decide to hold the EQT portfolio given strong performance in the market.

GIC already has a joint venture with Kennedy Wilson targeting €860M of urban logistics assets across the UK, Ireland and Spain.

With demand focusing on newer properties, Iput Real Estate and its partners are throwing their weight behind the Nexus Logistics Fund, with plans for up to 2.5M SF on a site near Dublin Airport and the M50 that comprises 17 buildings.

The first phase of Nexus is planned at about 1.5M SF across nine units, and earlier in August, Iput confirmed that it had let the 53K SF Unit 8 to IT asset disposition and electronics recycling firm Paladin EnviroTech.

Unit 8 forms part of the first phase of development at Nexus, which will deliver 1.5M SF across nine units, ranging from 53K SF to 460K SF, and Iput is now starting development of the 148K SF Unit 3, with completion targeted for May 2027. Upon completion of Nexus, Iput's logistics portfolio will increase to 6M SF from 3.2M SF.

Last year, Iput raised €115M in new capital from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund and a European institutional investor via CBRE Investment Management’s Indirect Private Real Estate Strategies to kick-start development. That was along with €115M invested by Iput through a combination of capital and its zoned logistics land bank.

“Our continued investment in Ireland's logistics sector is underpinned by structural shifts in global trade that are driving growing occupier demand for high-quality, sustainable logistics spaces,” Iput Real Estate Chief Executive Niall Gaffney said of the deal.

Mountpark is also progressing Grange Castle West in southwest Dublin. The €325M-plus scheme will ultimately accommodate around 1.24M SF of industrial and logistics real estate, with the first phase providing more than 626K SF.

An Post has already agreed to take a 50K SF unit, with occupation expected in 2027, and CEL Critical Power has taken 140K SF in what was the largest letting in Dublin's industrial and logistics market in Q2 2026.

The N7 corridor through southwest Dublin remains the most obvious development hot spot, with Grange Castle, Baldonnell, Citywest and the wider Naas Road corridor benefiting from access to the M50. But southwest Dublin has a problem: lack of available land. And that could push development further along the N7 towards locations where larger land parcels can still be assembled.

By contrast, north Dublin and the wider M2/M3 corridor offer access to the airport, Dublin Port and the M50, and the sale of Horizon has demonstrated the investment value of that connectivity, while recent letting activity has reinforced the strength of occupier demand.

Evri’s 92,500 SF letting at Airport Business Park was the largest Dublin letting in Q1, while Crane Logistics also took nearly 79K SF at Horizon. The airport market is particularly interesting because smaller, higher-specification units can command rents well above the Dublin average.

Prime Dublin yields have remained around 5%, with modest further tightening expected by the end of 2026, and Knight Frank warned that the availability of assets of scale is now the biggest factor likely to constrain investment volumes.