Drogheda - how not to do retail

Like many provincial centres, Drogheda has too many shops and too many out-of-town shopping centres

IT'S marketed as a "rare opportunity" to develop part of the centre of the historic walled town of Drogheda. Unfortunately, the Abbey Shopping Centre, which lies mostly vacant, is not a rare opportunity in a town badly hit by the recession and poor planning.

Like many towns around Ireland, the arrival of large shopping centres occupied by UK multiples and out of town retail parks have conspired to dampen the heart of Drogheda.

"Up until 2006 it was considered to be 'under-shopped'. But since then we've seen two new town centres, two retail parks on the edge of town, two new Lidls, two new Aldis and a new Tesco and Dunnes Stores on the edge of town," says Gabriel O'Brien of Drogheda-based commercial property specialist O'Brien Collins. "You can't just blame the recession; a very significant part is the fact that, physically, there are too many competing retail sites."

Much of the town's problems focus on the decision to allow two shopping centres to be developed in the town centre - Scotch Hall, built by Gerry Barrett, and Gerry McGuire's Laurence Town Centre. As is succinctly described in Brian Carey and Tom Lyons' book The Fitzpatrick Tapes, it was a poor decision for a town the size of Drogheda. "We were cutting our own throats by lending the guts of €100 million each in such a small town where there was only room for one centre," recites a former Anglo banker in the book.

Now there is an over-supply of retail space in the town - and O'Brien can't see the situation changing anytime soon. He says Drogheda is an example of "how not to do retail".

West Street, Drogheda's main thoroughfare, is home to large retailers such as Dunnes, Tesco, and Penneys, but vacant units proliferate, while the street ends in a succession of takeaways and discount stores. As O'Brien puts it, it's a "tale of two West streets" with the eastern part of the street, from the Moorland Café up towards Laurence Street, doing somewhat better. "There is a lot more activity on the streets, with a local market on Friday," notes O'Brien, adding that rates are a "huge issue of concern for would-be occupiers".

And it's not that different a story in the more upmarket shopping centres in town. Indeed, the Laurence centre has appeared on lists of the poorest performing shopping centres in Ireland, while there are still vacant units in Scotch Hall. O'Brien says that he isn't seeing interest from UK multiples looking to move in, and without these, he doesn't see vacancies at the upmarket shopping centres filling up any time soon. "I don't see that in the short term," he says. "Consumer confidence has to improve, people have to feel confident about spending."

It's a similar story over in Kildare. The new Naas Town Centre was supposed to bring life to the town centre, but now the shopping centre lies vacant and retailers are fleeing Naas for busier units in neighbouring retail parks. "The main issue in the town is the shopping centre," says Allan Shine, chief executive of North Kildare Chamber of Commerce. The shopping centre was due to open two years ago with Dunnes Stores as the anchor tenant, but it subsequently pulled out leaving a "massive problem" for the town, he notes.

Now it is suffering from the doughnut effect, with two major retail parks outside the town centre, and the largest Tesco in Europe housed in the Monread Shopping Centre on the edge of the town.

"If we knew then what we know now, a lot of retail parks wouldn't have got planning and we'd have a much more vibrant town," says Shine. As he points out, planning for all these developments was given at a time when Naas's population was due to double, up to 48,000. But while the retail parks were built and occupied, the town centre development came too late and has been a victim of the downturn.

Dermot Bolger runs Jackson Dry Cleaners, which has outlets all around Co Kildare and his story is a parallel of what's happened to Naas. He had originally signed up to locate in the new town centre development, but was "left in limbo" when it failed to proceed. So, he moved into premises in Fairgreen on a short-term basis, but business started to fall off, eventually becoming "unsustainable".

So, when he was approached to move into the Tesco development, at the same rent as he was paying in town, he went for it. As he puts it, he was "following the business". "It's early days yet and the retail business is challenged, but we're very optimistic of the new centre in Naas. Footfall figures are very strong," he notes.

Meanwhile in the town centre, Daragh O'Neill, a local auctioneer, is keen to point out that the "town is far from dead". The hope now is that Penneys will open on the site previously occupied by Superquinn. As O'Neill says, "big names are always a big draw".

Back in Drogheda, the focus is on getting more investment into the town, through initiatives such as its Local Heroes campaign, to help boost consumer confidence. PayPal's decision to set up a new centre in nearby Dundalk, creating 1,000 jobs, is seen as a positive.

"We hope to see 300 of them (jobs) come to here," says Graham O'Rourke, chair of the Drogheda Enterprise Centre. For him, a key policy issue for the town is the impact of planning decisions made at county level. "We're stuck between two local authorities in Louth and Meath," he says. "If that changed tomorrow it would make a huge difference."

On the plus side, O'Brien is seeing inquiries from a number of old-style retailers, such as butchers, looking to get back onto West Street. "It's coming full circle," he says. Residents of Drogheda must hope that it isn't coming too late to keep life in the town.