Publican Chris Kelly says he is challenging a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) of the Rivermount Shopping Centre in South Finglas because Dublin Corporation refuses to offer him "a fair market price" for his premises, the Tower Inn, which is on the site.
Dublin Corporation had planned to redevelop "the Rivermount", as the locals still call it, situated at the junction of St Helena's Road and St Helena's Drive in South Finglas.
Built in the mid-1970s, the Rivermount once had a supermarket, grocery, a bookies and a newsagent's shop but is now mostly derelict, with only the Tower Inn and a newsagent's shop remaining open. Most of the other graffiti-covered units have been empty for over a decade and are made all the more unsightly by the black metal shutters over most of their doors and windows.
In a response to a recent article in this supplement, Kelly, who leases The Castle Inn in Finglas and who previously owned the Village Inn in Inchicore, says he "would lose money on the whole transaction" if he accepted Dublin Corporation's compensation offer. The case comes before the High Court shortly. "I paid £700,000 for the pub 18 months ago. Dublin Corporation made me an initial offer of £450,000 and then offered £700,000. They want to buy it at the price I paid for it, which is ridiculous. I put a lot of money into upgrading the premises, putting in new tills and security cameras and I feel that I should get the market value so that I can set up again somewhere else."
He said while the rest of the centre is run down and neglected, the same could not be said for his pub. "I know it doesn't look great on the outside, but my pub is not dilapidated. It is in perfect order."
Kelly says that while the pub has had its problems in the past, he has "cleaned it up, increased the turnover substantially and encouraged an older clientele."
He says he offered to redevelop the site himself. "Dublin Corporation said they don't want a pub on the site. I offered to redevelop it as a supermarket but they were not interested. If they want to develop there, they will have to buy my pub off me. I bought it cheap because the turnover was minimal but it has since increased substantially in market value." Kelly says he has an offer of £1.5 million for the pub from Lidl, the German retail chain which, he says, is interested in redeveloping the site as a supermarket.
"You may think I'm making this up to bump up the price," says Kelly, " but I have letters from Lidl to prove it." Paddy Woods, assistant principal officer in the corporation's development section, said if compensation is not agreed, it is procedure to refer the case to an independent arbitrator who has the ultimate decision.
"The arbitrator will take both views on board and decide what is fair. We don't need to agree compensation before the Compulsory Purchase Order is confirmed. If we were able to agree a sum, we wouldn't need the Compulsory Purchase Order in the first place.
"The legal position is that he'll get what it's worth. Maybe it's not what he thinks it's worth or what I think it's worth, because different people have different ideas. " As for Kelly's proposal to redevelop the site as a supermarket, Woods says "we're not interested in having a shopping centre there, it hasn't worked in the past and Janelle shopping centre is just the other side of the fence."
