€15m upgrade for Finglas

Redevelopment: A planning application for the €15 million revamp of the dated Finglas main centre in Dublin 11 is about to be lodged to Dublin City Council, which if successful could kick-start the rejuvenation of Finglas Village.

The shopping centre, an L-shaped parade of 10 retail units with four floors of offices and a library overhead, is typical of the type built in the 1960s and 1970s with recessed shop units and a sprawling surface car-park.

Marumba Properties Limited, whose directors are David Courtney and Bernard Doyle of Spain Courtney Doyle, is looking to update and extend the first generation shopping centre and give it a modern brick, stone and glass finish. The proposal is for a high density mixed scheme with around 160 apartments in five blocks and a 150-space multistorey car park. The new look centre will have 14 retail units ranging from 50 to 1,686 sq m (538 to 18,148 sq ft) and an ATM unit.

The shopping centre will be renovated rather than demolished with a number of its existing tenants remaining in situ, although it is believed the developers hope to attract some high profile retail names to the area, which will ultimately depend on the success of the wider rejuvenation of the area.

The relatively high rise apartment blocks - which reach a maximum of seven stories although two floors will be set back at penthouse level - will represent a departure from the existing mostly low rise development in the area. Around 20 per cent of these apartments will be set aside for social and affordable housing.

Spain Courtney Doyle's in-house architect John Murray is responsible for the design of the scheme, which the developer says was devised in consultation with Dublin City Council.

There will be an access road from Jamestown Road to the multi-storey car-park and another access from Seamus Ennis Road to a retail loading area, crèche and a library.

Spain Courtney Doyle paid in the region of €11 million for over 8,300 sq m (90,000 sq ft) of retail and office developments in Finglas from the Galway-based Cunningham Group. The group had been hoping to secure around €14 million for the properties, which at the time were producing a rent of €1.2 million.

Another development in Spain Courtney Doyle's Finglas portfolio is the Finglas Shopping Centre with a total of 25 shop and office units, including an Iceland anchor store, an X-travision, Ladbrokes, Centra and China Palace restaurant. Also included in the lot was the Poppintree Mall, a two-storey block with a clock tower, retail facilities on the ground floor and offices overhead.

The Drogheda Mall is another open format parade of shops, located at the main entrance to the village. There are hopes that plans for developments in Finglas will reverse the area's decline. The council has earmarked Finglas for large scale redevelopment to enhance shopping, residential and social facilities.