East Point Business Park

East Point Office Park (Irish: Gnó na Rinne Thoir) in the docklands area of Dublin, Ireland is one of the country's largest^{[citation needed]} business parks, being the place of employment for thousands of people. It is situated in the East Wall area. The site has been selected as the location of the Irish Cable Landing station (CLS) for Ireland’s newest and fastest data cable. This near infinite capacity fibre optic sub-sea cable will connect Ireland to the UK and mainland Europe and it is being provided by Irish Company CeltixConnect. Installation is due for completion in 2010.

History

The park is situated on land reclaimed from Dublin Bay and the River Tolka estuary. The first phase of the park was opened for business around 1996. The site where EastPoint is located was intended to be a location for a new City Airport in Dublin, similar to London City Airport. When this plan ultimately proved impractical, the site was acquired by Earlsfort Centre Developments.

Earlsfort engaged Scott Tallon Walker to design the Park and the buildings and the landscaping was designed by Charles Funke. It became necessary, because of the route of the Dublin Port Tunnel, to construct a new bridge and causeway from Alfie Byrne Road to access the Park.

The success of the initial phase of EastPoint led to Earlsfort and Dublin Port Company entering a joint venture to develop a further phase. This brought the size of the Park to Circa 40 acres (160,000 m²) with Circa 140,000 square meters (1.5 m square feet) of mainly offices in 37 buildings. This also provided a further entrance to the Park from Bond Road thus enhancing access from the South City.

Major companies

Major companies based in East Point Office Park include among others Yahoo!, Cisco, Google, Oracle, Enterprise Ireland, CITRIX Systems, Quintiles, Ergo and UPC.

Enterprise Ireland leased one of the buildings within the park to serve as its new head office, in a move aimed at merging its four Dublin offices together at one central location, from the end of 2007.

Location

EastPoint is Dublin’s only central office park, located beside the Irish Financial Services Centre,the newly purpose-built Convention Centre overlooking the river Liffey, and other landmarks such as the recently renovated O2 concert venue at the Point Village and the brand new Grand Canal Theatre. O'Connell Street, Dublin city's main thoroughfare is less than 20 minutes walk away. Dublin airport is 10 minutes away by car via the Dublin Port Tunnel which is On EastPoint's doorstep.

Access

There are 2 entrances to EastPoint; The front entrance is off Alfie Byrne Road, and the rear entrance is off Bond Road. The park is served by excellent transport links, The Point LUAS station and Clontarf Dart Station are only a 10 minute walk away, and Connolly and Docklands train stations are also convenient options for those accessing the park. While there is no direct bus service, there is a free shuttle bus which runs between the park and Clontarf Dart Station, the Point LUAS station and Docklands and Connolly Train Stations. The free shuttle bus also goes to the city centre at lunch time 3 days a week.

Those using Dublin Bus can dismount at stops in Marino/Fairview and take the shuttle bus from Clontarf DART station to the park. Dismounting at the bus stop on the Clontarf road means you can walk to East Point via the Alfie Byrne Road in 5 minutes.

Facilities and amenities

The park's amenities and facilities include sandwich bars and coffee shops, a bar, a physical therapy clinic, a weekly gourmet food market provided by Irish Village markets along with weekly pilates and bootcamp classes

External links

• Official site