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JD Sports to open for business at Fairgreen in Mullingar, Co Westmeath

Sportswear retailer will join line-up that includes Penneys, TK Maxx and Costa Coffee

FairGreen shopping centre in Mullingar, Co Westmeath
FairGreen shopping centre in Mullingar, Co Westmeath

JD Sports is set to join the line-up at Mullingar’s Fairgreen shopping centre in early 2026. The European sportswear fashion retailer has agreed a deal to occupy a new 687sq m (7,400sq ft) store at the scheme.

The opening of JD Sports is expected to add considerably to Fairgreen’s appeal to its estimated catchment of 88,000. The centre, which has an annual footfall of more than one million visitors is anchored by Penneys and TK Maxx along with other retailers that include DV8, Dealz and Costa Coffee.

Developed in the early 2000s, Fairgreen opened for business in 2005. While the centre traded well, the loans underpinning it were sold in the aftermath of the 2008 property crash to Car Val Investors. In 2017, the scheme came close to being sold to US-headquartered investor Oaktree for about €11 million. The centre was acquired by its current owner, a fund managed by Davy Real Estate, after it was offered to the market a year later at a reduced guide price of €8.6 million. Fairgreen is now asset managed by Lanthorn, the privately owned real estate investor and asset manager led by David Goddard. The former chief executive of Davy Real Estate established Lanthorn following the acquisition last November of the Davy Group’s property investment unit and its €1.6 billion portfolio of assets. Those assets comprised Fairgreen along with numerous other retail schemes, including Dublin’s St Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre.

Karl Stewart of Cushman & Wakefield represented Lanthorn in the negotiations with JD Sports at FairGreen while Chris Bogle of Bogle Estates represented JD Sports.

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Ronald Quinlan

Ronald Quinlan

Ronald Quinlan is Property Editor of The Irish Times