With Paddy McKillen snr and Tony Leonard’s Clarendon Properties having only recently secured €11.9 million from the sale of Nutgrove Retail Centre in South Dublin to French fund Atland Voisin, strong interest is expected from investors in the upcoming sale of the neighbouring Nutgrove Shopping Centre.
The scheme, which was developed in the early 1980s by the late Phil Monahan’s company Monarch Properties at a cost of IR£12 million, is expected to command a guide of about €30 million when it is brought to the market by agent Savills.
Nutgrove Shopping Centre extends to a total area of 21,237sq m (228,593sq ft) distributed across 80 units, along with an 825-space surface car park. Although not all of the centre’s units will be included in the sale as they are owned by their occupiers, the centre’s current rent roll is understood to be about €2.8 million.
The scheme serves a wide and relatively affluent catchment area that takes in Churchtown, Rathfarnham and Terenure, and is anchored by several large retailers including Dunnes Stores, Tesco and Penneys. Other key occupiers include Omniplex (five-screen cinema), Boots and Carrig Donn. Nutgrove Shopping Centre has also been home since 1984 to McDonald’s first drive-through restaurant in Europe.
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The development is 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 in November 2024 of the Davy Group’s property investment unit and its €1.6 billion portfolio of assets. Those assets comprised a controlling stake in Nutgrove Shopping Centre along with numerous other retail schemes, including Dublin’s St Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre.
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Quite apart from the opportunity to grow the rental income being generated by its existing tenant base, Nutgrove Shopping Centre’s wider 13½-acre site may be of interest to investors and developers involved in the delivery of residential accommodation.
While the current owners sought planning permission in 2022 for the development of an eight-storey building comprising 91 apartments on a 1.045-hectare (2.6-acre) portion of the shopping centre’s lands, the proposal was rejected by Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council and refused upon appeal by An Coimisiún Pleanála.
