However, the terms of the sale revealed that the Faculty Building was likely to attract a much wider variety of bidders than the hotly contested Berkeley Court and Veterinary College sites.

For sale by public tender, the 0.36 acre site was put on the market on 12 May with a guide price in the region 27m. According to the selling agent Ian Campbell of Lambert Smith Hampton, this is a realistic guide price for a site of this size in this location.

"The lot size governs the guide, and because this is a much lower figure than for the previous two sites, a lot more developers have expressed an interest since the sale was first mooted in February, " he explained.

More importantly, the OPW building will be incomeproducing for the next 18 months and will also be exempt from stamp duty at 9%, which will provide considerable incentives for many more developers to enter the fray.

"The OPW will continue to rent the existing building at an attractive fixed rent, which means the successful bidder will have an income while applying for planning permission. As timescales for planning permission can take in excess of 18 months and it is likely that the successful bidder will have to form part of an action plan for the area, this income will be crucial, " said Campbell.

If the guide of 27m is achieved, this would give the site a value of 70m per acre which compares well with the recent 84m per acre at the Veterinary College.

The other two properties on the site, Jury's and the Berkeley Court both achieved record-breaking bids, which were won by developer Sean Dunne.

Developers Dunne and Grehan have set new records for the price of land as a result of intense competition for sites in the location. Grehan, raised the bar, paying 171.5m for the Veterinary College site in December 2005, giving the site a value of 84m per acre, the highest price paid for land in the state.

Dunne set the trend for land prices in the area with his initial winning bids of 100m for the Jury's site and 260m for the Berkeley Court site. As this is the final site in this prime location, many believe that Grehan and Dunne are likely to bid in order to expand their Dublin 4 landbanks.

Both have expressed strong statements of interest in the area and Dunne has gone on record as hoping to create Knightsbridge in Dublin 4. They are both currently carrying out research and are in pre-planning negotiating for major mixed-use residential, commercial and retail developments.