Retailers prepare to dock at Athlone's Golden Island

MORE than 40 per cent of the space in a new regional shopping centre planned for Athlone is already committed before construction commences on the site close to the River Shannon. The £25 million development, which is due to open for business next October, will include 160,000 square feet of shopping, 1,000 car-parking spaces and a multiplex cinema.

Athlone businessman Tom Diskin, who owns the land, will hold a majority stake in the centre. His partners are Owen O'Callaghan, the Cork-based developer and Michael Tiernan of Limerick. The consortium pulled off a coup by persuading the then Minister for the Environment, Mr Smith, to grant tax designation for the development the day before the Fianna Fail-Labour coalition ended its term of office.

The Golden Island Shopping Centre is likely to pose considerable difficulties for Athlone's existing shopping centre, originally developed 21 years ago by Monarch Properties and now in need of refurbishment. The centre was recently acquired by a company headed by the Dublin developer Robert Neill.

Its anchor tenant, Quinnsworth, has already served notice that it is moving to Golden Island where it has paid around £3.5 million for the largest unit of about 35,000 square feet. A sister company Penneys, has also bought a shop of 25,000 square feet probably for around £2.5 million. As Quinnsworth's lease in the existing centre has a number of years to run, it may simply hand it over to another company in the group, Crazy Prices, to strengthen the opposition to Dunnes Stores, which trades nearby.

The Golden Island promoters have agreed terms on the sale of a 2,000-square-foot bookstore and have also found a leading restaurateur to operate a large unit.

Neil Bannon of agents Harrington Bannon said they have had more than 150 inquiries for the 34 shops in the centre. Discussions are under way with leading UK multiples for two stores, one of 10,000 square feet and the other 12,500 square feet. Rents are pitched around £35 per square foot. Leases will have to be agreed by July next to qualify for double rent allowances and a remission of rates.

Mr Bannon said that with more than 250,000 people living within half an hour's drive of the new regional centre, it was expected that Golden Island would attract shoppers from many parts of the midlands.

In its campaign to secure designated status, the promoters quoted a report which showed that there was an annual "leakage" of £40 million in consumer spending to Galway, Mullingar, Tullamore and other towns.

A group of traders in Athlone opposed the rezoning of five acres for the new shopping complex on the grounds that, contrary to the objectives of the urban renewal legislation, the use of the tax breaks in this instance would damage the traditional shopping areas of the town.