Shopping CentresA large new shopping centre in Newbridge, Co Kildare, will provide strong competition for the big fashion and lifestyle centres in and around Dublin. Jack Fagan, Property Editor, reports
Development work is to begin early in the near year on a major new regional shopping centre in Newbridge, Co Kildare, which will provide the midlands with a strong alternative to shopping in Dublin. It will have an overall cost of €175 million and open for business in the spring of 2006.
The White Water Centre will have a floor area of 32,000 sq m (344,445 sq ft) to accommodate three main anchor tenants and 50 shop units. There will be a further 1,300 sq m (13,993 sq ft) of commercial buildings, a six-screen cineplex, 85 residential units and a total of 1,700 car-parking spaces.
The complex is to be developed on a joint venture basis by leading companies Ballymore Properties and Mountbrook Homes who acquired the former Irish Ropes site of Main Street a number of years ago. The same two companies recently secured planning permission for around 1,500 homes and a business park at Greystones in Co Wicklow.
With Tesco, Dunnes Stores and Supervalu already trading closeby in Newbridge, White Water will be carefully targeted at the fast expanding fashion and lifestyle markets. Well-known multiples such as Debenhams - currently the target of a management buy-out - Marks and Spencer, House of Frazer and BHS are likely to be on the short list for the main anchor store.
Unlike other new shopping centres opening in the provinces, White Water does not need a supermarket because of its close proximity to long established food outlets in the town. Fergus Keane of Hamilton Osborne King - joint letting agents with Colm McEvoy - says their aspiration is to create a "mass market fashion centre" that will serve a broad stretch of the midlands and east coast. The catchment area within a 30-minute drive has a population of 160,000.
The two other anchor stores will be aimed at companies such as Penneys, Next, New Look, Zara and TK Maxx. Otherwise, there will be a broad range of Irish and international tenants in the two-level shopping centre which has been designed by architects Henry J Lyons. The facilities will also include a food court.
The decision to promote White Water as an alternative shopping venue to Dublin is likely to have broad appeal given the ever worsening traffic congestion in the suburbs and the city itself. With few opportunities available for leading international multiples to develop their business in the Dublin area, the big high street names will be only too happy to settle for a second venue which does not have traffic problems and where rents are likely to be significantly lower than in either Grafton Street or Henry Street.
There was an enthusiastic response from overseas tenants when the proposed Newbridge centre was formally launched last week at a conference in Birmingham run by the British Council of Shopping Centres.
Sean Mulryan, chairman and managing direct of Ballymore Properties, says White Water would be the largest shopping development in Ireland outside Dublin. They were confident the centre would attract some of the largest European, UK and Irish retailers who would appeal to the quality mass market. He said he expected that the development would bring an enormous amount of business and employment to the Kildare region.
Sean Dunne, managing direct of Mountbrook Homes, described Newbridge as a thriving commuter town and recalled that it had been identified as a "primary development centre". This would inevitably lead to an exceptionally strong population growth over the years ahead.
