CMETB outbid for Cavan offices

THE Cavan-Monaghan Education and Training Board (CMETB) has failed to extricate itself from a controversial 35-year tenancy agreement after being outbid in purchasing the Cavan Town offices at auction.

Numbers 2-6 Church View Square have now been listed as “sale agreed” by selling agent JLL.
The Anglo-Celt understands that the final sale price, in a blind auction with only one opportunity for interested parties to enter a bid, was around 10% above the guide price of €3M.
A spokesperson for JLL said that the Church View office units sold for “well in excess of the guideprice”, and that the highest bid was secured by an “Irish” based buyer.
They added that the deal is currently at contract stage and several weeks out from finalisation.
The Celt has since learned that CMETB were sanctioned by the Department of Education to bid in the region of €3.1M for the property.
Prior to the bidding process, CMETB failed in its attempt to attain, as sole tenants, exclusive negotiation rights.
The units were previously listed for sale almost three years ago by the commercial arm of DTZ Sherry FitzGerald, now Cushman & Wakefield. The same properties, for which local auctioneer Don Crotty was also listed as a selling agent, had a guide price at the time of €2.5M.
 

Leases signed

The Church View lease was signed towards the end of November 2009 by then VEC chair and current Cathaoirleach, Cllr Madeleine Argue (FG), as well as former VEC CEO Colm McEvoy.
It has no break clause and concludes in 2044. A term of just over 26 years remains, with rental payments of close to €7.6m.
According to details obtained by the Celt under Freedom of Information, the rental cost per annum totals €289,050, inclusive of VAT, on a full repairing and insuring (FRI) lease.
Earlier this year CMETB had approached the owners, local businessmen Cormac Dunne and Hugh Lennon, seeking a review and possible reduction of rental costs.
They are furthermore understood to have sought legal advice concerning the lease but the agreement remains watertight.
“We did put in an offer, and at this moment in time it appears the offer was unsuccessful,” CMETB CEO John Kearney confirmed to The Anglo-Celt last week.
He added, with regards to the bid: “It was an opportunity for us to do something [about the lease]. It remains a contentious issue with the board but we now have to move forward from this. It is disappointing and it is disappointing we were unable to go back and renter the bidding process.”
Last year the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) wrote to CMETB and the Department of Education and Skills seeking information regarding the lease agreements that the education body entered into in 2009. However, the committee determined there was “insufficient detail” contained in a letter outlining concerns in order “to take any action”, and the matter was merely noted.
CMETB does, however, stand to save some money by ending their lease at Unit 12 Church View Square, set to expire at the end of this year.
The move will see office for Community Education Services transferred to Nos 2-6, and classroom facilities parachuted to the former Jackson’s Garage site, to be vacated by Gaelscoil Bhreifne.
That two-year lease at Unit 12 is worth €28,000 per annum.
The 10-year lease on Jackson’s Garage, the ownership of which is still listed with Urban Renewal Enterprises (Cavan) Limited of which Darragh Elliott, Noel Elliott (Snr), David MacKey and Noel Elliott (Jnr) are directors, was signed in 2012. It has break clauses after periods of three and five years.
The lease is worth €40,000pa and was also signed by Cllr Argue and Mr McEvoy.
The former Jackson’s garage was among those properties included in the sale of a 2.42 acre block of retail and development space in Cavan Town centre earlier this year to a Dublin-based investment fund for in the region of €2.7m.
It included a total of eight retail units, eight apartments, two public houses, the former Jackson’s site, a former B&B, a carpark, a house and a development site, generating a combined annual rent roll of circa €357,000 per year.
 

CMETB leases elsewhere

Further to the Church View Square lease in 2009 is another 35-year tenancy agreement entered into by the former Cavan VEC for Cavan Institute offices at Hampton Court.
Owned by Noel Elliott Snr, Noel Elliott Jr, Mark Elliott, Cormac Dunne and David Mackey, that lease is worth €252,822.48 a year.
The signing of that lease was overseen by then chair and current Cavan County Council vice Cathaoirleach, Cllr Clifford Kelly (FF) and Mr McEvoy.
Now expired, as of July 2, is the 35-year lease the former Cavan VEC signed with St Felim’s Diocesan Trust in respect of Cavan Institute offices on Main Street, initially at a cost of IRL£12,500 in 1983, costing €85,000 per annum.
CMETB will, meanwhile, consider next year whether to continue its interest in leasing the Cavan Youthreach Centre at Moynehall, owned by Weststate Limited of whom Pacelli Lynch, Mary Brady and Desmond Brady are directors.
That lease, at a cost of €33,000 per annum, was signed by chair Sean McKiernan and current CEO, John Kearney, in 2017.
In neighbouring Monaghan, CMETB will review leases on the FÁS office on Market Street, Monaghan, costing €17,500 per annum and Carrickmacross Workhouse, belonging to the Farney Development Group, costing €32,657.78 annually.