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Dún Laoghaire Shopping Centre revamp – Ossian Smyth

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Dún Laoghaire Shopping Centre revamp – Ossian Smyth Ossian SmythUntriedParty Councillor for Dún Laoghaire Menu HomeWell-nighme Priorities Latest News Press Get involved Donate Contact Dún Laoghaire Shopping Centre revamp The owners of Dún Laoghaire Shopping Centre unromantic just surpassing Christmas for permission to redesign the outside of their towers and re-arrange the shop-floors inside. This is in preparation for the inrush of two large new retailers to the centre. The latest rumour is that one of these will be TK Maxx. This week I copied the plans and in this post I’ll show you what the owners intend to do. You can make a submission on these plans to the steering planning office or let me know in the comments unelevated what you think. Changes to the exterior Clearly Dun Laoghaire Shopping Centre is one of the ugliest buildings overly synthetic in the county so any kind of reconstructive surgery will be given the goody of the doubt – the increasingly radical, the better. Marine Road has been particularly misfortunate not just by the shopping centre but moreover by the brutalist St Michael’sDenominationon the opposite side.  The malleate of the period left us with two major public structures in our town centre that resemble a prison and an abattoir. Marine Road chasm between St Michael’sDenominationand Dún Laoghaire Shopping Centre   Proposed new elevation from Marine Road So whilom you can see the start of the  planned changes to the side withal Marine Road.  Eason’s newsagent is on the left of this photo as we squint up the hill of Marine Road towards George’s Street. This is the corner of the Shopping Centre where Farrell’s pub is located. The plan is that this pub and the neighbouring shops on the third and second floor would be replaced by one large retailer. Proposed Shopping Centre Marine Road elevation Above, you can see that the owners plan to add increasingly glazing to the Marine Road elevation, tent some of the vast brown brick expanses that grace its 1970s facade. (Click on any of these images for a tropical up) Proposed Shopping Centre Georges Street view Proposed Shopping Centre Georges Street archway The facade withal George’s Street will moreover have increasingly glazing tying and a higher archway porch where the newspaper sellers have their stall. Changes to the interior Following a recent refit, the interior of the shopping centre really doesn’t squint too bad. Dún Laoghaire Shopping Centre Interior The problem is the incomplete range of shops, and the lack of an vise tenant or a department store. I counted 35 vacant units and everyone expects that the owners were transplanting out tenants in preparation for the inrush of some new mega-shop. The proposal is to place a new vise tenant in a space created by merging a number of units on Level 3 and linked with other merged units on Level 2.  These would unshut onto George’s Street, abreast AIB. A second, medium-sized retailer will be located on levels 2 and 3 at the North end of Marine Road.  Here are the proposed floor plans Shopping Centre – Level 2 Shopping Centre – Level 3 Will it work? It may not go far enough. I’d certainly prefer if the facades could be entirely re-skinned or, lightweight that, at least if the bricks could be repainted to remove any trace of their villainous brown hideousness. If the new retailers can fill the gaps in Dún Laoghaire’s retail offering, then there is the potential to bring some shopping life when to the town. On the other hand, the town currently seems oversupplied with a  selection of shops with weak trade and the wing of plane increasingly units aiming at the lower end of the market may not be the weightier option. When I saw the planning using on the wall of the shopping centre, I had hoped that the owner had given up retailing and was planning to devastate the unshortened woodcut and replace it with a large number of apartments. The Snapper The shopping centre had its heyday from the mid 1970s to the mid 1990s, when it served as a social as well as a commercial hub.This was surpassing the minutiae of the Dundrum and Carrickmines centres. Locals, including me, felt nostalgic and proud when the 1993 movie ‘The Snapper’ used the shopping centre as a location. A short history The Shopping Centre opened in 1976, replacing a large number of shops on Marine Road and Georges Street, and demolishing a  beautiful Regency row: Gresham Terrace. Gresham Terrace, next to the Royal Marine Hotel Gresham Terrace was replaced with the barred windows of a multi-storey parking lot, so that the cars could take in the commanding view of Dublin Bay while their owners went shopping.Unelevatedyou can see the surpassing and without photos of the corner of Gresham Terrace and Marine Road. I guess sometimes a society takes a step backwards and this is one such example. Marine Road- Gresham Terrace junction   The corner of Marine Road and George’s Street was moreover transformed: Marine Rd – George’s StSurpassingCorner of Marine Road and George’s StreetWithoutNotice that Ulster Bank remained in the same corner position without the shopping centre was constructed. A photo from the 19th century of the same location: Marine Road – George’s Street 19th C Why now and what happens next? Until 2014, vacant commercial properties could obtain a full rates refund in Dún Laoghaire. This meant that a landlord could leave a shop empty for years, while contributing nothing to the town.   In the 2015 steering budget, I voted with other councillors to tuition 25% of the normal commercial rates on vacant properties. This meant that the owners of the shopping centre were faced with a large and ongoing tuition so long as they left 35 units vacant.  Agents for the owners wrote to me to mutter that they would have to reduce the rents.  So they now had an uneaten incentive to get the units rented out. There is a period of five weeks for the public to make submissions on this planning application. I am going to support the internal reconfiguration but I will ask for a increasingly would-be redesign of the exterior. The planning reference number for this using is D15A/0846 Notes: Several woebegone and white photos in this post were previously posted by Geraldine Manley and Tom Conlon in the “Dun Laoghaire Past and Present” Facebook group. The shopping centre is owned by a private, unlimited Irish company, Coltard. The directors of Coltard are Joseph Higgins and John Ryan. The property is managed by Murphy Mulhall Dún Laoghaire Shopping Centre revamp Tagged on: Dún Laoghaire    Planning    Planning application    Shopping Ossian January 1, 2016January 11, 2016 Latest News 29 Comments ← Latest changes proposed for bus routes virtually Dún Laoghaire How can we diamond Cherrywood to be a healthy, vibrant district? → 29 thoughts on “Dún Laoghaire Shopping Centre revamp” Paul and ÉilisJanuary 1, 2016 at 1:01 pmPermalinkUnconfinedPaul and ÉilisJanuary 1, 2016 at 1:48 pmPermalink Thanks Ossian, very good post, expressly for giving the proposed upgrade details and the photos of Dun Laoghaire surpassing the shopping centre. We agree, it would be unconfined if the shopping centre / denomination brutalist “chasm” on Marine Road could be re-modelled. As you say, the proposals may lessen the brick squint somewhat but not very much. We don’t see how the proposed glazing improves things much at all for the street and some of the detailing unquestionably makes things worse. The real problem though, as your view up Marine Road shows, is the continuous, chasm-causing, upper vertical wall springing up at the pavement edge, Although a new wall finish might help to lose the unsightly unseemly brick look, it wouldn’t help much in lessening the chasm. We would much rather see a shopping-centre subversiveness and well-constructed rebuild with mixed apartments and ground-floor shopping with a much increasingly respectful speciality to the pedestrian pavements, with a less cliff-like frontage. It’s nonflexible to see how respecting the streets could be achieved from the current towers without doing something drastic like taking off top floor perfectly at the edge, or removing the well-constructed towers corner at Marine and Georges. It’s unconfined that the charging of 25% rates on empty units has once had this effect. We’d like to see rates on occupied units go lanugo while rates on unoccupied units increasingly ramp up vastitude the 25% to 100% within a couple of years. This would increase the pressure on landlords to subtract rents and get tenants or else develop housing. The Dunnes woodcut is a particularly irritating example of a landlord keeping shops unoccupied for over a decade now. We have not looked at the final typhoon County Plan for 2016-2022 but one thing that was missing was a strong plan for the cadre Marine Road area. The drab denomination surrounds, the empty Senior College, and the similarly derelict, old Christian Brothers school are as much in need of a well-constructed make-over as the shopping centre. A pedestrian and cycling prioritised, unshut permeable diamond with a good density of (Passive House grade) apartments, shopping and unshut spaces and play zone is much needed for the unshortened cadre of the town. Some bigger, gentler thinking is surely needed to unzip a much stronger and increasingly inviting centre for Dun Laoghaire. AlanJanuary 1, 2016 at 3:03 pmPermalink That shopping centre has unchangingly been a hideous eyesore.Largestto pull it lanugo and create an outside square. Restaurants, bars, live entertainment and cultural activities. Make the town stand out and yank residents and tourists in. TigJanuary 1, 2016 at 5:09 pmPermalink Thanks Ossian. Interesting reading well-nigh this expressly nasty piece of architecture. A revamp would, I guess, be better, than keeping it the way it is, and largest new tenants would be great. But really, the towers is scaled and oriented so horribly that a revamp can’t do much: it’s too fundamentally wrong to overly be repaired. Then again, wouldn’t mind a TK Maxx… Nicola LennonJanuary 2, 2016 at 12:12 amPermalink The owners of the shopping centre should consult with experienced retailers/ consultants and start by attracting 2 or 3 big named upper street stores like H&M, Zara, top shop or the like, requite them FREE rent for a few years. Their other units would fill up very quickly with other retailers wanting to locate tropical to big names, trade would grow organically. Revamping the centre is a good idea only if they have once secured quality retailers. Get good shops in and the people and other traders will follow.Steeringshould requite FREE parking for first 1-2 hrs.Squintat dundrum they have a Mecca of shops and amazingly unseemly parking. Carrikmines self-ruling parking and unconfined shops and is a huge success. As a previous merchantry owner and retailer in Dunlaoghaire for increasingly then 12 years and a family merchantry there for increasingly then 20 years I finger knowledgeable unbearable on what might help grow merchantry there again. Time and time then customers complained directly to me that the parking situation was terrible very expensive and shoppers were unceasingly penalized for coming to the town to shop , by parking attendants handing out tickets every endangerment they got. They used to work in teams hiding overdue corners talking to fellow parking attendants on radio to reservation out the car owners/shoppers at every opportunity. Shoppers were literally chased out of town by the parking attendants tactics and tickets. If the steering gave self-ruling parking it would show the locals that they are serious well-nigh trying to rebuild the town and trade. A feeling of goodwill would follow and perhaps the shoppers might gradually uncork to return. Nicola LennonJanuary 2, 2016 at 12:48 amPermalink This is the first time I have looked at your website, it’s unconfined and very informative on things going on in the area, alimony up the good work!Moreoversince my scuttlebutt whilom I noticed from your site that you do have a proposal on the parking, ‘free without 3pm.’ A good idea but I don’t think it goes far enough.Requiteshoppers first 1-2 hours self-ruling parking. When they park they put a ticket on their car (from the machine) which shows time of their arrival. parking attendants monitor. Commuters can’t leave their cars all day as they will get a ticket when the 2hrs expires, pearly unbearable for all. Lots of shoppers like to shop in the morning between the hours of 9am and 3pm (ie during school hours) not just without 3pm. Workers can’t shop without 3pm as they are at work. Just requite self-ruling parking at all hours but limit it to 1-2 hours, parking can be paid for then if staying longer then the self-ruling parking period. At weekends people like to shop all day not just without 3pm. Cars/shoppers naturally rotate, the self-ruling parking in Carrickmines seems to work very well, why not DL. OssianPost authorJanuary 2, 2016 at 1:02 amPermalink Thanks so much for your comments, Nicola. Dave mulliganJanuary 2, 2016 at 8:12 amPermalink One of the mail problems with dun laorghaire is the upper parking charges… It’s cheaper to go to dundrum or nutgrove than here. The steering should write this too!! AsterJanuary 2, 2016 at 10:49 amPermalink Re comments regarding self-ruling parking etc. Firstly imo, Dun Laoghaire is a town that was never designed to be a momentum to, momentum through destination like the retail giants such as Dundrum & Carrickmines. Dun Laoghaire is never going to have the car designed capacity, space nor infrastructure to compete with the likes of these places. So why try and compete. Dun Laoghaire is extremely well served with public transport and is located in an zone where most of its citizens can reach it by walking, cycling, taking public transport and or driving. By continuously yoyo that Dun Laoghaire’s demise is due to car-parking charges etc, is unquestionably preventing Dun Laogharire from moving forward. The focus should be on enhancing the charms of a town/village in comparison to the draws of a giant glitzy shopping centre. Shopping as we know it/knew it has changed. On-line shopping, out of town shopping in momentum to destinations have grabbed a huge proportion of shoppers and this is not going to transpiration by congesting our towns with self-ruling or highly reduced parking. Helen DuignanJanuary 2, 2016 at 12:14 pmPermalink Interesting post thanks. I stipulate with the poster whilom who says glazing will only marginally modernize the cliff squatter effect and subversiveness is the most preferable option. I disagree that the RC denomination resembles an abbatoir – in fact I think it’s quite a successful towers – despite a unrepealable brutalist external visitation – it yields quite well to the surrounding streets – thanks largely to the plaza at the corner of Marine Road and George’s Street – what a pity this wasn’t replicated on the shopping centre side. There’s nothing quite like rounding that corner on a winter’s day when Marine Road is vicarial like a funnel for the freezing wind howling up from the harbour. I disagree with shopping centres in unstipulated – but those unliable in town centres are probably preferable to untried field site centres that suck the life (and business) yonder from towns. However – permitting a second shopping centre in Dun Laoghaire (Tesco) was wool madness – and it killed off most of the decent businesses that had managed to survive on George’s Street. Attracting decent vise tenants and improving the visitation of the towers is welcome news – but as someone said whilom – it simply doesn’t go far enough. The main street seems to ripen in uncontrived proportion to the improvements at the coast. It’s a tale of two cities – hummus in the park, heroin on the upper street. Sonething somewhere went terribly wrong. CatherineJanuary 2, 2016 at 12:34 pmPermalink I am all for seeing Dun Laoghaire shopping part-way demolished & rebuilding on the site with a mix of units & lovely walk thru village feel. I don’t think the revamp is doing anything to take yonder the eyesore squint of the building. In Molesworth St in town they are demolishing old seventies buildings & starting from scratch, not sure why same can’t be washed-up in DL. It definitely needs some higher end vise stores to pull people when in & while lots of parking in the area, they need to reduce it somewhat or do a self-ruling parking with spend over unrepealable value to encourage people back. Over Christmas shopping period I paid €2 for several hours of shopping in Dundrum. I paid a lot increasingly than that to shop local in Dun Laoghaire. I would shop local increasingly but just not much on offer. Seems all monies stuff spent on the seafront but not unbearable stuff washed-up for the Main Street & retailers. Linda ForanJanuary 2, 2016 at 12:52 pmPermalinkWell-nightime something was proposed we need life when into the town of Dun Laoghaire too many sore sights of sealed shops, I work for one of the main retailers on the main street and have for 34 years seen many changes good & bad , our town is full of fast supplies shops & coffeehouses 1 poping up every other week . parking is our worse enemy that all people talk well-nigh run in and out of the shops as fast as the can so as not to get a ticket !!! When making changes please consider all avenues so as to make any proposals workable ,listen to all retailers still left in Dun Laoghaire and not just to those people sitting overdue a sedentary looking at a towers plan and know nothing well-nigh our town !!! Gilly HendersonJanuary 2, 2016 at 4:03 pmPermalink I stipulate with all of the whilom comments…………70’s shopping centre in an old town like Dun Laoghaire pure madness now. Forty years later we realise that. BTW the architect/planners etc should have been shot for designing not only the ugliest towers but giving cars the sea view! Nuts. Pull it down. Th site crying out for a sympathetic and town like approach. Maybe too late as now we have apartments on Marine rd and of course, The Lexicon. DLRD pull yourselves together and stop tarting up the seafront, leaving the heart of the town to fester. Gilly HendersonJanuary 2, 2016 at 4:09 pmPermalink While I’m having a rant well-nigh the ghastly DL ‘shopping centre’ It’s no centre and very few shops………..why is there no Aldi in DLRD? There’s Sandyford D18, Bray WCC. Why not Glenageary roundabout? OssianPost authorJanuary 2, 2016 at 4:18 pmPermalink Hi Gilly, An ALDI is stuff built now in Sallynoggin on Pearse Street at the site of White and Delahunty Motors. The owner of the former Deer Hunter site on the Glenageary roundabout has permission to build a Lidl and a nursing home there. I expect ALDI will opne in a few months and that Lidl will be built this year. I wrote well-nigh this here: http://www.ossiansmyth.ie/nursing-home-and-lidl-approved-for-sallynoggin/ Orla CosgraveJanuary 2, 2016 at 4:37 pmPermalink Having grown up in Blackrock in the 1960s/70s Dunlaoghaire was where we went to shop on a Saturday afternoon. There were so many shops then – that you were spoilt for choice. I never liked the shopping centre or Bloomfields so gave up going to Dunlaoghaire. I now find that I do most of my shopping for gown in Debenhams in Blackrock. It saddens me that the Chambers of Commerce and CountySteeringhave washed-up little to vamp new merchantry to Dunlaoghaire. Unless the owners of the shopping centre can vamp top notch companies I wouldn’t scarecrow wasting money on refurbishing this white elephant Ciaran FlynnJanuary 2, 2016 at 6:01 pmPermalink Rents and rates are far too upper in Dun Laoghaire, thats a big problem in attracting new shops and something the steering could hands address. As for for saying the parking rates dont stupefy the town, thats rubbish, it does. parking should be self-ruling all day Saturday at least. There is plenty of parking on the streets of DL up as far as Clarinda all the way lanugo to the old Top Hat (which is self-ruling on a Saturday lanugo there). There is good public transport but ultimately people like to drive. DLRCC seems to have uncounted money and thats the problem, they dont superintendency well-nigh the town and whats in it. With the right shops in the town it could make a comeback, you never know EmmaJanuary 2, 2016 at 6:06 pmPermalink Thanks Ossian for keeping us up to date. Yes, it would be largest to pull lanugo the shopping centre, but will this really happen? There is a problem with narrow footpaths outside the shopping centre esp. virtually AIB entrance, this should be corrected in the revamp, pull the shopping centre archway when giving a wider footpath. Would we be largest to wayfarers for subversiveness rather than indulge revamp to occur, TK Maxx to come in & then it’s too difficult to backtrack. I noted someone mentioned empty Senior College & Christian Brothers etc, why don’t the CC put it out there that there are vacant units suitable for education (or other) purposes & let people wield for use? Anyway, thanks Ossian Andrew NolanJanuary 3, 2016 at 12:04 pmPermalink The revamp will be welcome withal with attracting some key vise stores. The biggest problem DL has is the parking financing that are anti commercial. So while it is unconfined to see improvements happening there is increasingly to do by the local govt to vamp people when into the town ScottJanuary 3, 2016 at 12:07 pmPermalink While your on the subject of Dun Laoghaire as a whole, Dun Laoghaire Harbour is just as bad.Withalwith the proposed Cruise Liners coming, there will be a large zone abreast the Marina that will sit un-used. The old HSS terminal, once a vibrant ferry terminal, now sits derelict. Yes there have been a few concerts and momentum through cinemas, but is that the weightier you can come up with?Unshutthe zone up, add a couple of lines and space numbers. Boom you have a giant parking lot, 5 mins walk from the part-way of town. How has no one else seen this? Michael BuckleyJanuary 3, 2016 at 12:08 pmPermalink We should wayfarers for subversiveness and rebuilding in a increasingly unshut continental vein – unshut plaza with a mix of retail and Entertainment /restaurants etc. Bringing big name stores to the town is not the wordplay in the short term, Dun Laoghaire was never a car friendly town and therefore Dundrum et al will unchangingly score. ConchobarJanuary 3, 2016 at 6:52 pmPermalink The problems with Dun Laoghaire are as obvious as they are often-repeated; Rates, parking, the offensive waste of money on the “Lexicon”. Everyone keeps saying it. It’s such a pity considering it’s a lovely town but the decision-makers seem so far removed from the reality of anyone unquestionably trying to make a shop work virtually here, that it scrutinizingly seems as if some members of DLRCC sit lanugo every year and say “now… what else can we do to put people out of business?” vandra costelloJanuary 4, 2016 at 11:32 amPermalink Thanks for that interesting post, though I must disagree re St Michael’sDenomination– it is a fine building! vandra HazelJanuary 5, 2016 at 9:45 amPermalink I think it would be fantastic to see the shopping centre get a revamp I am not from Dunlaighaire myself my Mother is so remember getting the 45a bus out from Bray to DunLaoghaire as a child & shopping inPart-wayat that time all the shops where opened there was unchangingly a lovely undercurrent now going out to Dunlaoghaire shoppingPart-wayit’s sad to see most of the shops sealed . Dunlaoghaire is the next big town to Bray town & there was never any shoppingPart-wayor big name shops in Bray so it was unchangingly a treat to go to Dunlaoghaire. It would be fantastic to see the new uplift on the shoppingPart-way& big retailers moving in . I’m hopping NewSquintwill unshut a worthier shop in Dunlaoghaire 😉 mags nelsonJanuary 5, 2016 at 1:57 pmPermalink I can’t think of a remoter waste of money, there are increasingly units in the town empty considering of rates and parking charges, sorry I don’t and won’t shop in Dun Laoghaire……..a lovely town destroyed by Councillers and the like……….as long as the people do not incur financing to this SC through rates etc, do want you want……. Duncan SheppardJanuary 12, 2016 at 10:23 pmPermalink I did read somewhere well-nigh a department store for the new shopping centre, and I think the department store should be Marks and Spencers as this would requite the supplies department a endangerment to return to Dun Laoghaire considering when it sealed its doors a few years when many people were very sorry to see it go including myself. LaurenceFebruary 22, 2016 at 5:32 pmPermalink Looking at the photographs of the trams and old buildings is unbearable to make you weep. DLRCoCo is unfit for purpose and should be shut down, starting with the planning department. Shocking. Maeve CallaghanFebruary 22, 2016 at 11:18 pmPermalink Thanks for all that information and history Ossian. Really enjoyed the old photos in particular. It’s shocking the trappy old buildings that have been pulled lanugo for smooth “modern” replacements in Dun Laoghaire, the old Courthouse flipside example. I have unfortunately missed the submission deadline. So here are my comments in specimen they can still influence the development. I moreover think increasingly housing in the form of apartments would be far largest for the town, and probably lucrative for the developer. However if the plan is indeed to alimony it as retail, the two large/medium vise stores will help to alimony the centre going. However one service that is immensely missing from Dun Laoghaire is a FREE soft play zone for kids under 10 yrs in particular. The Scotch Hall shopping centre in Drogheda has a sunny & successful example of this http://scotchhall.ie/news/?article=160 While enterprising private centres offer this service with an archway fee, we can’t unchangingly nippy out in a sideboard in order to let our kids play somewhere like this and we shouldn’t have to! A “Play Zone” ways your kids can have a little bit of fun when you are doing the shopping, expressly where it rains for nearly half the year! It will bring people with kids INTO the centre considering it ways less stress for everyone. With so many vacant units, this seems to be a win win idea for everyone. Ger ByrneJune 6, 2016 at 11:50 pmPermalink The word Centre as in ‘Shopping Centre’ is correctly spelt ‘Centre’ we are Not in The U.S. Where every word is phonetically spelt. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email write will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment Name * Email * Website Archives September 2017 February 2017 December 2016 January 2016 November 2015 October 2015 August 2015 July 2015 April 2015 February 2015 December 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 January 2014 Meta Log in Copyright © 2018 Ossian Smyth. Powered by WordPress. Theme: Spacious by ThemeGrill.