Seán Dunne's Mountbrook Property Group has been granted planning permission for a 57,000sq m (613,542sq ft) residential, shopping and commercial development at the Zed Candy factory site on Church Street in Kilcock, Co Kildare.
Kildare County Council has given the green light to the project which will rise to seven storeys and include a 100,000sq m (1.076 million sq ft) shopping centre, 1,670sq m (17,976sq ft) of office space, a crèche, medical centre, 180 apartments and 500sq m (5,382sq ft) of space for community uses, yet to be determined by the local authority.
The anchor store will be a supermarket and there will be 28 retail units, restaurants, cafés and a food court.
The apartments will be built in five blocks and pedestrian access to the development will be from Church Street through the property to the canalside area where the restaurants, food courts and medical centre facilities will be located.
Zed Candy Ltd is due to relocate in mid 2008 and Mountbrook, which acquired the site following a tender process in 2006, reckons the project will be "a badly needed catalyst for development" in the town.
Zed Candy moved there in 2001 when it bought the Leaf Factory from Dutch Company CSM.
The factory was originally built by the Leaf family who began making bubblegum in Chicago in the 1930s.
Henry J Lyons, who designed Mountbrook's Whitewater shopping centre in Newbridge, will also be architects for the Kilcock development.
Another site in Kilcock has been earmarked for development by McGarrell Reilly Contractors and the Sammon Group.
They are looking to turn the former Kelly's Bakery into a major mixed-use residential, commercial and retail development.
This encompasses a 3.8-acre site to the south-east of the Square, Kilcock, Co Kildare, with direct frontage also onto New Road to the west and Harbour Street to the south.
The project has a gross floor area of 24,345sq m (262,047sq ft). The retail element comprises a 6,057sq m (65,200sq ft) anchor convenience/comparison unit.
There will also be 26 retail units totalling 2,770sq m (29,816sq ft) at ground floor level.
The residential elements will consist of 155 apartment/duplex units. The total development makes provision for 599 car-parking spaces at surface level and 548 at basement level.
The design blueprint also includes a new road from a proposed junction with Harbour Street.
A landscaped public open space extending to 6,080sq m (65,445sq ft) adjoining the Square and New Road is also proposed.
