€800m shopping centre planned for Ballymun

A SIX-YEAR stand off between Dublin City Council and Treasury Holdings over the value of a shopping centre site in Ballymun, Dublin 11, has finally been resolved, leaving the way open for the developer to seek planning permission for a major new retail complex in the town centre.

Treasury yesterday lodged a planning application for an €800 million mixed-use complex that will include 60,293sq m (648,993sq ft) of shopping space, 27,883sq m (300,130sq ft) of office space, and over 11,000sq m (118,403sq ft) of leisure facilities including an 11-screen cinema, bowling alley, family entertainment centre and a child drop-in centre. There will also be a basement car-park with 2,185 spaces, and 367 one, two and three-bedroom apartments.

There will be eight new blocks varying in height from four to seven storeys with two basement levels, one of them linked directly to the proposed Metro North stop at Ballymun Road.

John Bruder, chief executive of Treasury's Irish operation, said that rather than providing another enclosed shopping centre they would be developing "a new retail precinct with streets and a square".

Apart from two anchor tenants, there will be more than 100 shop units on the ground, lower ground and first floor levels.

The centre is expected to benefit greatly from the fact that it will be only half a mile from the planned IKEA store which is due to open for business next year.

Treasury originally paid Sisk Properties €8 million in 2000 for its 500-year lease on the eight-acre shopping centre site while the council retained the freehold. In recent years Treasury has claimed that it had agreed to buy out the council's interest along with a further six acres for about €25 million. This was consistently denied by the council which insisted that no contract was drafted.

Treasury eventually blinked, agreeing to pay close to €60 million for the freehold on the shopping centre plus an adjacent site which will take the overall area up to 14.5 acres.

Apart from replacing the old shopping centre, the new complex will be developed on the site of the former swimming pool, health centre, AIB bank, The Towers public house, Penthouse bar, Garda station and part of two blocks of flats.

The current shopping centre, anchored by Tesco, will be demolished before works get under way on the new complex. The British multiple will be given the option of anchoring the new complex and, according to Mr Bruder, there is already strong interest from other retailers.

A marketing campaign for the new centre is due to be launched at the annual exhibition of the British Council of Shopping Centres in Liverpool next November. Treasury is hoping to begin work on the new centre in two years.

Niall Kavanagh, director of development at Treasury Holdings Ireland, says the firm can "complete the development by 2012".

The proposed new town centre will be one of the final pieces in the completion of the Ballymun regeneration programme and the centrepiece of a new town with a projected population of 40,000.