The new Blanchardstown Town Centre is the first of a number of major shopping complexes due to open in Dublin in the next two years, reports Nuala Haughey
By NUALA HAUGHEY
TODAY'S opening of the £60-million Blanchardstown Town Centre is the first strike in what is set to be a battle of the big shopping centres in Dublin over the next two years.
The rearguard in this economic warfare may be the smaller suburban shopping centres and city centre shops which will aim to stem the drain of customers away from the traffic-congested city centre to the climate-controlled, muzak-filled malls.
The Blanchardstown centre, off the Blanchardstown road, is by far the biggest of the major centres which are bettering the trend in drive-to-buy shopping pioneered by The Square in Tallaght.
On Mary Street in the north of the city, a £50-million Jervis Street centre, which opens on November 8th, is expected to bolster the area against out-of-town rivals such as the Blanchardstown centre.
The Jervis Street centre has attracted a number of heavyweight British multiples to its 330,000 sq ft complex, including Debenhams, Boots, and Dixons, the giant electrical retailer. The centre has 750 car parking spaces, which are supplemented by the multi-storey car park developments in Abbey Street and Parnell Street.
In Quarryvale, three miles from the Blanchardstown centre, a smaller rival out-of-town regional shopping centre is due to open by Christmas, 1998.
Quarryvale's 180-acre site north of Clondalkin is strategically located at the fulcrum of the Western Parkway (M50) and the Galway Road. Its shopping centre will be 252,000 sq ft. The company promoting Quarryvale has long maintained that it has the best site in the area, perhaps even in the whole of Dublin.
Close to the prosperous south Dublin suburbs, land has been earmarked in Dundrum for a £50-million development including a 120-bedroom hotel, 100,000 sq ft of offices, multiplex cinema car park and housing.
Quinnsworth will occupy a 40,000 sq ft store in the shopping centre which is likely to be about 200,000 sq ft. Major tenants like Marks and Spencer, Debenhams, and Boots may join the centre, which is likely to open in late 1998.
In Swords, north Dublin, a planning application was made last month for a £100 million shopping centre, bar, restaurants offices, multiplex cinema and a multi-storey car park on a 20-acre site between Main Street and the Swords by-pass.
And in Dun Laoghaire, the £20-million Bloomfields shopping centre which has a gross floor area of 145,000 sq ft, is due to open next May.
The Blanchardstown and Quarryvale developments typify the current trend in retailing for shopping centres to become bigger, more concentrated and located in the outskirts of towns. Such centres are aimed at shoppers within a 30-minute driving radius but are also confident of attracting day shoppers from throughout Leinster and beyond.
Both Blanchardstown and Quarryvale will hope to attract regular customers from Finglas to Foxrock and further afield.
Some 600,000 people live within a 15-minute drive of the Blanchardstown centre, according to its developers, Green Property Co. Access to the complex will be improved greatly when the Northern Cross motorway opens to link Blanchardstown directly with Finglas and Santry.
The inevitable casualties of the hoover effect" of these developments will be small retailers who cannot compete with the prices of the large chain stores.
The director-general of the Retail Grocery, Dairy and Allied Trades Association, Mr Michael Campbell, said the combined shopping space in the new centres was "grossly excessive". It will put the family retailer under increased pressure and undoubtedly cause a significant number to go out of business," he said.
The Henry Street/Mary Street Partnership, which represents traders in the area, says the out-of-town centres will not lead to a customer drain from the area.
"The attraction that the city centre will always have is that buses, taxis and train routes all go into it . . . There is no other location anywhere in Ireland where you have top names like Marks and Spencers, Pennys, Roches, Dunnes and Arnotts within 100 yards of each other," a spokesman, Mr Ed McDonald, said.
He said traders would welcome the competition of the Jervis Street centre which will bring more shoppers into the area.
Back in suburbia, the Blanchardstown centre is set to capture a significant share of the retail market. "We hope to steal a march on any future developments but we will hope to consolidate our position as we expand," said the centre's manager, Mr Aidan Grimes.
Mr Grimes said he would welcome the competition that the other planned shopping centres would bring. "We will all have to fight for our share in the marketplace and Blanchardstown will be there with the best of them offering the services and facilities that customers require. But at the end of the day, the customer dictates," he said.