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Obel Tower in Belfast. William Murphy via Flickr/Creative Commons

Tallest building in Ireland taken over by administrators

The three companies which control the building applied for insolvency and administrators from KPMG have now been appointed.

THE OBEL TOWER in Belfast, Ireland’s tallest building, has been taken over by administrators according to three appointment of administrator notices published today.

The notices were published on The Belfast Gazette website, which is the government publication in Northern Ireland for insolvency and company law.

According to the notices, administrators from KPMG have been appointed to Obel Ltd, Obel Offices Ltd and Donegall Quay Ltd, the three companies which control the 28-storey building after the companies applied for insolvency.

Financial accounts filed last year for Donegall Quay showed the company owed Bank of Scotland Ireland more than £51 million.

The sky scraper, located a Donegall Quay was built in 2005 and at a cost of £60 million. Measuring 85 metres in height, the tower has dominated the Belfast skyline ever since and remains Ireland’s tallest building.

182 apartments in the building were released in March 2005 priced from £100,000 to £475,000 and all were reserved off plan within 48 hours.

However most of the apartments in the building remain empty and the majority of space in the office block is let to the international law firm Allen & Overy, BBC reports.

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23 Comments
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    Mute Adrian Bannon
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    Dec 1st 2012, 4:38 PM

    Theres a pattern to all this…the people get robbed everytime and the state supports the robber..Iceand had a peaceful revolution..can we?if not why not?
    Irelands corrupt developers,still reeling it in at our expense, NAMA zombie banks.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqHwAHQ2nmI

    http://potspansdocumentary.wordpress.com/2012/07/14/iceland-people-bilding-a-revolution/
    In Iceland, the first European country to wake up to an economic crash, people became aware that they could and should intervene in society and started demanding more democratic participation.
    The payment of bank debts by citizens went to referendum. The government was forced to create a Council to write a new constitution: a citizens’ group – without politicians, lawyers or university professors – who opened the discussion process to everybody and managed to approve by consensus a draft proposal.

    In Iceland, many citizens are now organized in associations and have substantial proposals for a society where everyone can participate.

    Let’s meet the Icelanders that the media refuse to talk about.

    105
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    Mute tom
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    Dec 1st 2012, 5:11 PM

    Iceland made the right choice as a nation and in the interest of its people.
    never understood why this was never considered here.

    95
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    Mute snooch
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    Dec 1st 2012, 5:14 PM

    Iceland didnt have a choice and HAD to act as it did. Have a look below the surface and see that they really still haven’t recovered

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    Mute Eric Pelow
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    Dec 1st 2012, 5:30 PM

    The Irish bank bailout has nothing to do with this. Whether you like it or not Belfast is in the United Kingdom. The bank owed money is Bank of Scotland, now part of the Lloyds Banking Group, both British banks. What you are talking about is totally irrelevant to this story.

    69
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    Mute tom
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    Dec 1st 2012, 6:16 PM

    there was no vote on bailing out banks with taxpayers money it was all done behind closed doors.
    receiver should have been sent in first day. the real lossers would have been the banks stakeholders and bond holders. instead it’s the avg joe in the street and his kids that will be paying this back for the rest of their lives.
    Iceland is in much better position than we are by acting in the interest of its people.

    23
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    Mute stoned.walled
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    Dec 1st 2012, 8:36 PM

    You wasted your time writing that comment. As the previous poster stated bank of Scotland Ireland has nothing to do with Nama or the irish tax payer.

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    Mute Murty Forde
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    Dec 1st 2012, 9:39 PM

    100% spot on. Country is focked. These decisions made without responsibility or recourse.

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    Mute hgjhghjgh
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    Dec 2nd 2012, 12:35 AM

    Great video, thanks Adrian. What a waste of our money.

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    Mute Joan Featherstone
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    Dec 2nd 2012, 7:37 AM

    Exactly Eric!

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    Mute Sean O'Keeffe
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    Dec 2nd 2012, 8:26 AM

    “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it”
    ― Frederic Bastiat

    Latvia like Iceland and Denmark allowed insolvent banks to fail. Latvia’s Parex bank was it’s second largest bank and the Latvian equivalent of Anglo-Irish was allowed fail and bondholders took the hit in 2008 when Latvia sought an IMF bailout. Public spending was savagely cut.
    This year Latvian banks have taken more foreign deposits than Switzerlands. They’re economy grew by 5% last year and they’re unemployment rate has fallen.

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    Mute Brendan
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    Dec 1st 2012, 4:42 PM

    When the comment is longer than the article its a strange one…

    51
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    Mute Andrew Telford
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    Dec 1st 2012, 5:13 PM

    The NYT did a good article on the sudden proliferation of skyscrapers as a predictor of an economic downturn… Asian financial crisis, Great Depression, Dubai etc seemed pretty interesting and made a lot of sense…

    It’s a great pity they were never allowed in Dublin. I believe they could have kept a lid on some of the property crash. More renters, less obsession with home ownership, more stable property price rises, no ghosts estates and endless commuter belts that would have never worked without cheap oil or a booming economy to negate the price of expensive oil.

    29
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    Mute tom
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    Dec 1st 2012, 6:25 PM

    don’t agree with your comparison to rental vs buying, ballymun was a failed example of highrise living.

    it’s got to be said, here and UK for various reasons home ownership is the goal. rental is stop gap or those without means getting trapped and exploited by landlords.

    I know the rental model works in places like Germany but they have strick laws and protect the tenants.

    28
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    Mute Andrew Telford
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    Dec 1st 2012, 11:38 PM

    As opposed to the low waged, unstable job, no savings people being allowed… nay, encouraged to borrow/leverage/write an application form full of lies to buy something, anything(priory hall comes to mind) of poor quality just to ‘get a foot on the property ladder’

    9
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    Mute Barry O'Brien
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    Dec 1st 2012, 4:49 PM

    I thought the Elysian in Cork is the tallest building or is that just he tallest in the ROI?

    21
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    Mute Fergus O'Neill
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    Dec 1st 2012, 4:59 PM

    It seems no, on all counts, according to this Wikipedia page.

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    Mute Diolúin Ó'hUigín
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    Dec 1st 2012, 5:00 PM

    Sorry, misread that! :/

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    Mute Barry O'Brien
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    Dec 1st 2012, 8:56 PM

    Ah cheers. It’s the tallest non-church building :) knew I had read something along that sorts before

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    Mute Ciaran O Shea
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    Dec 1st 2012, 7:01 PM

    The Elysian is the tallest building in Ireland. Eire 26!!

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    Mute hgjhghjgh
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    Dec 2nd 2012, 12:25 AM

    Ya Ciaran, that’s what I thought

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    Mute hgjhghjgh
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    Dec 1st 2012, 6:38 PM

    Why people so intrested on comparing the UK’s issues to ours?

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    Mute tom
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    Dec 1st 2012, 6:47 PM

    maybe it’s our closet and longest trading partner, we watch their TV channels more than our own. most Irish people have someone they know living there or have visited themselves, our laws are very similar. UK still controls 6 of our counties.

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    Mute hgjhghjgh
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    Dec 2nd 2012, 12:26 AM

    Good point, thanks Tom

    4
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