The development is being undertaken jointly by Chartered Land, Joe O'Reilly's development company, and Heritage Properties, controlled by Terry Devey.

The region has been dubbed 'Legal Central', with Matheson Ormsby Prentice, Beauchamp's and A&L Goodbody all relocating to adjoining sites in the South Docks area.

"The presence on both sides of the quay of the largest professional, accountancy and legal practices has created an extremely strong demand from their medium-sized peers, " says Arthur Ryan of Bannon Commercial. "These practices have traditionally been housed in Georgian buildings around Merrion and Fitzwilliam Squares but we have a large number of practices on the waiting list for the Grand Canal project who find these buildings no longer satisfy their operational requirements."

Key to their decision to relocate seems to be the availability of open-plan air conditioned offices that are easily adaptable to modern IT requirements. In addition, according to Ryan, a large number of these practices simply don't fit in Georgian buildings any more. "We have seen most demand for areas of between 500-1,000sq m. We can accommodate sizes of up to 4,000sq m on a single floor plate."

Another likely reason for the demand is the ability to purchase office units . . .

medium-sized firms have a clear preference to purchase rather than rent their office accommodation. "We are dealing to a large degree with individuals who own their own businesses and they would rather own their offices too."

Most striking about the development, however, is the architecture. The buildings have been designed by Studio Daniel Libeskind, best-known for their role in the reconstruction of the World Trade Centre in New York. The theatre will stand at over 40m and is set to become one of Dublin's landmark buildings.