Union Investment enters Irish hotel market

Union Investment is entering the Irish hotel market. The Hamburg-based real estate investment manager has acquired the planned Premier Inn hotel in Dublin’s Docklands. The vendor and developer of the hotel project is Glenveagh Properties.

Union Investment has been active in the Irish office property market since 2015. The company also recently entered the Irish housing market by acquiring the 8th Lock residential project in Dublin.

The hotel will offer 9,936 square meters (106,950 square feet) of rental space and a total of 262 rooms spread over nine floors. Construction is expected to begin in July of this year. Completion is scheduled for fall 2023. The hotel is already leased to Premier Inn on a 25-year lease. The creditworthy tenant is part of Whitbread PLC, the United Kingdom’s largest hospitality group, and is the market leader in the premium budget hotel segment.

“We are expecting demand for hotels to recover by 2023 — the year of completion — a