RETAIL MARKET:DEVELOPMENT WORK is to begin later this year on a large mixed-use development, including a shopping centre, in Letterkenny, Co Donegal.
The €120 million scheme will occupy a 10-acre site off the busy Port Road.
Letterkenny Gateway Centre will have a covered shopping mall of 12,000sq m (129,167sq ft), including two anchor stores and 25 shop units when it opens for business in the early part of 2010.
JNP Architects is handling the design of the scheme which is to be built by local businessmen Peter Coyle and Terry McEniff. Agent Bannon has agreed terms with one anchor trader and is in discussions to let the second unit.
In addition to the range of shops in the centre there will also be several external retail units as well as restaurants, offices and leisure facilities.
The car-park will accommodate 1,250 cars.
The site for the new centre is particularly well located along the road linking the town's retail parks with Letterkenny shopping centre.
A new road will run along the perimeter of the site linking the Derry Road with the Neil T Blaney relief road. The site is also opposite Letterkenny Institute of Technology which has over 2,500 students.
Letterkenny has a population of 20,000 and is seen as a major centre in the north-west, drawing from a large catchment area of Donegal and extending across the border into Tyrone and Derry.
Kevin Sweeney of Bannon said his agency is "actively engaged"with a number of leading retail brands who are interested in moving into Letterkenny.
