Sale of site for Ballymun shopping centre agreed by councillors

Plans for a new shopping complex in Ballymun, to replace the facilities of the almost vacant Ballymun Town Centre, have been approved by Dublin city councillors. Local councillors have voted to permit the €1.8 million sale to Alanis Group of a council-owned site on Ballymun Main Street for the construction of the new centre. The sale will be formally ratified by the full council next month.

The site is immediately adjacent to Ballymun Town Centre, the dilapidated 50-year-old shopping centre, which is having its tenants removed before its planned demolition.

Plans for a new shopping centre were central to the regeneration of Ballymun. In 2000, Treasury Holdings paid more than £6 million for a 53 per cent stake in the old centre, which was to be razed and redeveloped as the main shopping facility for the suburb's 18,000 residents.

It was not until 2009 that the company secured planning permission for Springcross, a vast €800 million development which was to include an 11-screen cinema, bowling alley, public library, crèche and restaurants, as well as shops and offices.

Treasury had intended to begin construction the following year but the economic crash intervened and the town centre lands became part of Nama’s portfolio of loans before any development began. Most retailers in the centre subsequently shut up shop and early last year it lost its anchor tenant, Tesco.

Last May Dublin City Council, which already owned 47 per cent of the old shopping centre, reached agreement with Nama and its receivers to acquire the remaining 53 per cent.

The Alanis centre will be considerably smaller than Springcross and its development will go ahead independently of the old complex initially. It is likely to become part of a larger retail development once the old centre is demolished.