Tim Lennon of CBRE was selected as Project Manager of the Year at the 2015 Fit Out Awards, which celebrate excellence in the execution of world-class fit outs in Ireland. We caught up with the award-winning Wicklow man to find out more about the Building Consultancy Department within the world’s largest commercial property consultants.
CBRE’s senior project manager Tim Lennon was honoured to pick up the coveted Project Manager of the Year accolade at the 2015 Fit Our awards in November. “The award itself is well recognised in the industry and I was delighted to be selected,” he notes. “The awards celebrate high-quality commercial / retail fit outs throughout Ireland and CBRE put forward my nomination using case studies of a number of successful CBRE projects completed over the previous 12 months including the Google Café Pronto! Project – a 45 square metre café refurbishment at The Gasworks Building in Dublin. The Project had an incredibly tight programme, which we delivered in eight weeks and finished on December 18th, 2014.
“This was the first year that CBRE submitted any projects to the Fit Out Awards. It was great to be nominated and even better to win!”
Quality pervades every facet of CBRE – the world’s largest commercial property consultancy firm, employing over 70,000 people in more than 500 offices globally. Through consultancy advice and transactional and property management capabilities, they deliver results that ensure that clients realise the true value of their real estate.
Building Consultancy is just one of the many key services provided by CBRE Ireland. Working throughout Ireland, the UK and Mainland Europe, CBRE Building Consultancy is a multidisciplinary group which harnesses the skills of Building Surveyors, Architects, Quantity Surveyors and Project Managers to advise owners, occupiers, developers, banks and investors on how to get the best from their buildings and on how best value can be delivered through creative technical solutions that bridge the gap between the physical and operational characteristics of the property and the balance sheet.
With a full range of construction consulting skills, they provide advice to clients when they are buying, selling, funding, developing, relocating, occupying or maintaining.
Tim Lennon has been working for the largest real estate firm in the world for two-and-a-half years. “The Building Consultancy Department is just part of what CBRE does. We are a separate department that exists within the overall operation, with a team of 17 in total between our Dublin and Belfast offices.
“This comprises Project Managers, Quantity Surveyors, Building Surveyors, Architects and an Interior Designer and the skills of this department are provided to all of CBRE’s clients, including major companies like Google, Groupon, Uber, Diageo, Opentext Aon Insurance, Teleflex and many other confidential clients.”
As well as being highly professional and vastly experienced, the team is flexible and versatile. Their expertise is in big demand, in keeping with the superb reputation that CBRE has earned nationally and internationally. “At the moment we are working on numerous different projects, which are at various stages from inception to completion. We have a constant flow of work.”
Every client and every job is treated as a priority, CBRE guarantee total attention to detail from the first point of contact through to completion of projects. An island-wide service is offered. “We work regularly in Northern Ireland but the majority of it is in the Republic of Ireland. In the past six months, we have completed projects in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Athlone, Galway and a number of different locations throughout Ireland.”
While the recession hit the property / development sector hardest, Tim sees real signs that the worst of the downturn is now behind us. “I have seen a huge upturn in the past twelve month,” he states. “However, even when times were bad for the industry, our Building Consultancy Department actually experienced natural growth for the past two or three years. I joined the firm during a heavy recession but we built relationships during those bad times and that has left us in a strong position going forward.”
All in all, CBRE and its excellent Building Consultancy Department can report a very clean bill of health. “David McConnell, who is the Head of Building Consultancy, has been instrumental in this,” Tim stresses. “David joined two years ago, coming in from the Middle East, and a lot has happened in this organisation since he joined. He has built a very strong team around him and that has been massively important. Meanwhile, our MD Enda Luddy has been fully behind everything the BCD does and is incredibly supportive of the department and sees the value that we can add to CBRE’s existing client base”
The result is a high-performing, award-winning department that epitomises the firm it represents!
CBRE Ireland,
Connaught House,
Number One Burlington Road,
Dublin 4,
Ireland,
Tel: 01 618 5500
Fax: 01 668 2991
www.cbre.ie
Taken from Building Ireland magazine, Spring 2016, Vol 2, No 1
