Vote puts Phibsborough shopping centre plan in doubt

The sale and redevelopment of the 1960s Phibsborough shopping centre is in doubt following the decision of Dublin city councillors not to approve a master plan for the suburb.

The Phibsborough Local Area Plan would have governed the development of the largely Victorian suburb in the north of the city up to 2021, by which time it will have a Luas line and 20,000 students on the DIT campus at Grangegorman.

Shopping centre

The plans, designed to facilitate the construction of the shopping centre, schools and some 750 homes, will have to be redrafted as councillors refused to accept proposals for a tower up to 37m (121ft) tall at the shopping centre site.

The new plan was designed to replace the earlier Phibsborough and Mountjoy local area plan, published in 2008 but never implemented. Changes in Government schemes for the area and the collapse of proposed private developments have made several provisions of the previous plan obsolete, necessitating new planning criteria for the area.

Mountjoy prison

The 2008 plan was based on Government policy to close Mountjoy Prison and relocate it to Thornton Hall, and to build a new national children’s hospital at the Mater hospital.

At the same time, Bohemians football club had plans to leave Dalymount Park, and there were proposals for a new “village centre” on the combined site of Dalymount and the 1960s-built Phibsborough shopping centre.

The prison, which the 2008 plan thought could become a boutique hotel, is for the foreseeable future staying put, and the children’s hospital is going to St James’s on the other side of the city.

Bohemians is to stay also, with the council earlier this year having bought the ground for €3.8 million to retain it as a sports facility.

The redevelopment of the shopping centre as a retail and housing complex was to go ahead separately. However, councillors would not agree to a building 5m taller than the existing tower, and have ordered that the plan be amended and reissued for public consultation and submissions.

Opened in 1968, the shopping centre was one of the first in Dublin. It is in the control of Nama and was to go on sale shortly with a guide price of €15 million. However, councillors voted by 17-13 not to allow the additional height and voted to reduce the future height to 28m, a move likely to make it less attractive to potential buyers.

The councillors’ decision must be subject to public consultation next year.

The greatest potential for housing is at the northern end of Phibsborough, where it meets Glasnevin. The key residential site is the former Smurfit printworks on Botanic Road, where more than 250 homes could be built. The Department of Education wants part of the site to be reserved for a school.