RETAIL MARKET:With four retail parks either being built or planned for Waterford, competition for the city's retail trade looks set to intensify, writes Jack Fagan.
B&Q IS TO unveil its new, smaller store concept on Thursday next week when it opens for business at Butlerstown Retail Park in Waterford city.
The park, developed along the new outer ring road, is one of three planned for the area around that roadway while another one has been earmarked for the former Waterford Crystal sports grounds closer to the city centre.
B&Q is likely to be paying a rent of €161 per sq m (€15 per sq ft) for its 3,251sq m (35,000sq ft) store which will also have a garden centre.
B&Q also operates eight full-size DIY stores at Liffey Valley, Swords, Tallaght, Naas, Limerick, Galway, Cork and Athlone.
Developer Jim Tracey is also understood to have reached broad agreement on rental terms with Harvey Norman which wants a store of 4,041sq m (43,500sq ft).
Halfords and Hickey Fabrics are also planning to open stores in Butlerstown which is close to the junction of the Cork Road and the Outer Ring Road. Chris Bogle of Bogle Estates is the letting agent.
A short distance away Co Kildare-based developer Gerry Conlon has already completed most development work on another retail park which will extend to 10,034sq m (108,000sq ft). There were unconfirmed reports that he is in discussions with Wickes, the home improvement providers, to anchor the park which covers 9.5 acres. Savills HOK is the letting agent for the scheme known as Waterford Retail Park.
Galway developer Gerry Barrett also had grandiose plans for a €200 million "First City Centre" near Waterford Airport after paying €45 million for 33 acres along the ring road. The original plan envisaged a mixture of offices for internationally traded services, 200 houses and apartments, and a mixed retail and leisure space to include a hotel and multiplex cinema.
There were hints that Marks & Spencer would be central to the plan but Waterford City Council was having none of it. Last month, An Bord Pleanála finally approved the phase one plan for a DIY unit of 5,970sq m (64,260sq ft), four retail warehouses units totalling 6,430sq m (69,212sq ft), a 12-screen cinema, bar and restaurant, and 483 car-parking spaces.
And that is not all the retail warehousing planned for the city. Newry developer Gerry O'Hare is awaiting a decision from the planning appeals board on an application by his Parker Green International company to build yet another 9,290sq m (100,000sq ft) of retail warehousing on the former sports grounds at Ballybeg on the Cork Road.
The planning application also envisages another cinema and a hotel, a conference and enterprise centre, polyclinic, as well as offices and leisure facilities.
