Docklands marketplace gets go-ahead

DUBLIN CITY Council has approved plans for a temporary market and performance space, built from about 200 shipping containers, next to the 02 arena in the city’s Docklands area.

Point Village Square will be used to host small-scale concerts, screen films and sporting fixtures, and will offer visitors a number of boutique restaurants and cafes.

It will also be home to an 80m big wheel structure, currently being built in the Netherlands, and described as Dublin’s answer to the London Eye. The square is expected to open early this summer.

Permission has been granted for the temporary development, in which Dublin City Council is a partner, to open for four years. The council will use the facilities for community activities, meetings and sporting events such as five-a-side football leagues.

Harry Crosbie, chairman of the Point Village development, said he was delighted the project had received the green light.

“We are planning, between the Point Village Square and the O2 and the big wheel, to have seven million people visiting the area every year,” he said.

“This will be a site that will combine the attractions of the world’s busiest concert venue of its size, a market to rival Covent Garden and a unique tourist attraction in the big wheel.”

About 150 stalls are expected to feature in the weekend market, which Mr Crosbie described as Ireland’s biggest. Street performers and local artists will also be involved in generating an atmosphere in the area.

Mr Crosbie said the square was a temporary and low-cost solution “to open the area to the public and share our assets rather than letting them lie idle in the recession”.

The developer is involved in a legal dispute with Dunnes Stores, the anchor tenant for a 23,225sq m (250,000sq ft) retail development which forms part of the Point Village. This element of the project has been paused, and Mr Crosbie said the matter would be going to the courts in June.

When completed, the €850 million Point Village development will consist of a cinema, shopping centre, offices, a hotel and apartments. Mr Crosbie said the project had encountered some difficulties because of the recession.

“We haven’t met our targets,” he said. “Business has been bad . . . We’re going to finish it but the amount of people on offer to take it up is disappointing. The business environment we’re operating in is very difficult.”