Feast for foodies planned in new £10 million food hall

Speciality shops in speciality centres have been a growing trend in retailing and the latest idea about to come to Dublin is that of the food hall. Already popular in New York, London and other cities, the idea is to group a collection of specialist food retailers under one roof so that foodies can gorge themselves on choice, if not on the actual food.

Developers Don-Lay Group are already building the hall close to the Jervis Centre in Dublin and plan to have it open for Christmas with some 20 shops and 10 kiosks offering an interesting mix of specialist food retailers.

"We really want people who will bring their own individual expertise to bear rather than having a general supermarket type place," says Joe Layden of Don-Lay. "There are food halls in Dublin which are not really food halls at all: they're really supermarkets. The food hall we're looking at is a place where you have 20 or 30 traders, all of them with their own specialities, whether it be ethnic or exotic or whatever."

The £10 million development, designed by architects Henry J. Lyons & Partners, lies between Middle Abbey Street, Lower Liffey Street and North Lotts and includes the Old Abbey Mall. The centrepiece of the site will be the single-storey food hall with 35 apartments around the perimeter. It will also include a mini-market, an off-licence and coffee shop to cater for apartment dwellers in the area.

Some 24 of the apartments, which qualify for Section 23 tax relief, were sold in one day when they went on the market last month at prices between £110,000 for one-bedroom and £160,000 for two-bedroom units. The remainder are due to go on the market later this summer.

Don-Lay has researched the idea of a food hall in Britain, Europe and the US and come to the conclusion that it should not include cooking on site. That requires so much ancillary space for storage and extraction that it is not economic in a downtown area, Mr Layden says. "The cost per foot is not economical unless it is a greenfield site and if it's a greenfield site you won't get the throughput of people."

He adds "Where you've got a big shopping hinterland you can specialise in one niche. Food is a very sexy product at the moment worldwide and, as a result, people don't just want food from the normal range of supermarkets. They want it from speciality backgrounds, ethnic foods and so on and they want them supplied by a specialist trader doing each one. So if you're a chocolate person you have someone like Lir chocolates. If you want olives, you go to someone like Joy of Olives. You have a person in each shop unit who specialises in the area in which they have expertise."

The developers have already approached a number of specialist food sellers who might be interested in the concept. Mr Layden says the response has been good but they have not yet made any decisions about who to include.

"It is vital to get the mix of traders right because the dynamics of this kind of thing are central. Unless you've got people who bring something to the party, as it were, it may not be successful. We will look for people who will bring something to the table."

The intention is to use a large measure of joint marketing, with common packaging for all retailers in the centre and, perhaps, a single checkout. The aim is to create a single brand for the centre under a name that has yet to be decided.

"The intention would be to involve each of the tenants to a very substantial degree in the final layout, finish and marketing approach of the hall. With that in view, it is desirable that the tenants, most of whom are probably successful operators in the retail food business at present, could be identified in the near future."

The retail area of the development will amount to approximately 14,000 sq ft. Shops will average about 400 sq feet and will be let on long term leases while the kiosks, of about 100 sq ft, will be let on standard trade licences. Average rents sought for the shop leases will be about £18,000 per annum while fees for the kiosks will average £110 a week.