WORK is finally to begin before the end of this month on the Quarryvale shopping centre which is to be developed along the C-ring motorway in west Dublin.
It is due to begin trading before Christmas, 1998.
A formal announcement that the Duke of Westminster's property company is to take a £60 million stake in the development company is to be made in London later this week. The statement will confirm that Marks and Spencer is to be the main anchor tenant with a 90,000-square-foot store, which will cost it around £9 million. Another major UK multiple, C & A, will have its first Irish operation for many years at Quarryvale. C & A is understood to have agreed terms for the purchase of a 22,000-square-foot outlet. Quinnsworth is known to be anxious to trade alongside Marks and Spencer in its first out-of-town department store.
Aid an O'Hogan of letting agents Hamilton Osborne King has been swamped with inquiries about the remaining shops in the centre because of the perception that the presence of Marks and Spencer will ensure its success.
The Duke of Westminster's company, Grosvenor Estates, and the joint-developer, Owens O'Callaghan, have appointed contractors to begin work almost immediately on the road and the infrastucure. Around £15 million is to be spent on a new roadway system, including an underpass at the junction of Fonthill Road and the N4, before construction can begin early in 1997.
Marks and Spencer is also likely to look closely at the new shopping centre planned for Dundrum by a consortium headed by businessmen Pascal Taggart and John Clohessy. The multiple has been looking for a suitable location in south Dublin over the past few years.
The consortium paid £6.6 million for the 17.6 acres which were largely rezoned for commercial, leisure and residential use three years ago. The land is to be merged with a five-acre site owned by Quinnsworth, where the Crazy Prices supermarket is currently located. The deal will allow Quinnsworth to occupy a new 40,000-square-foot store in the new centre.
The complex will have about 200,000 square feet of retail space.
The development will come as bad news to the pension fund, IPFPUT, which owns the nearby Dundrum Shopping Centre and collects around £1 million in rents from it. The superior car-parking facilities planned for the new complex may attract many shoppers away from the existing centre.
IPFPUT is also facing new competition in Dun Laoghaire where a new shopping centre is under construction close to its long established shopping centre.
