An innovative new shopping centre is to form the centre-piece of a major rejuvenation project planned for the rundown docklands area of Drogheda.

The £50 million (€63.5m) development will also include a multi-storey car-park, 50 apartments, heritage facilities and possibly a small hotel and multiplex cinema. The promoters expect it to be a forerunner to the development of a promenade with bars and cafes along the Boyne river to attract people to the area.

A planning application for the development of the six-acre site on the southern side of the Boyne is to be lodged shortly by Galway-based developer Gerry Barrett, who completed the Edward Square retail complex in Galway last year and is currently involved in a new retail park, office and housing scheme on a 12-acre site at Wellpark in Galway.

The Drogheda shopping complex will have almost 270,000 sq ft of retail space on two levels, including an anchor store of 86,000 sq ft. The shopping centre will link in to a 900-space multi-storey car-park which will be accessed directly off the Dublin Road via a signal-controlled junction at the base of the Duleek Road and by a bridge/ ramp across the Marsh Road.

An extensive range of fine stone houses dating from the turn of the century, which are listed for preservation, are to be restored and will form an important part of the new scheme.

The unveiling of plans for the docks site comes at a time of rapid change in Drogheda. For the first time in decades the town is showing signs of resurgence, with new businesses locating in the town and hundreds of new houses being built, mainly for Dublin commuters.

Drogheda's retail facilities have not kept pace with the growing population, and with shopping mainly confined to West Street - where car-parking is extremely limited and major multiples have failed to find a pitch - the town has been losing out heavily to rival shopping areas in Navan, Blanchardstown and Dundalk.

A new shopping centre earmarked a few years ago for the former Drogheda Grammar School site in the centre of the town is still before the planners. Opponents of the scheme contend that, if built, it would greatly accentuate the town's traffic problems.

Gerry Barrett, who has delivered several major commercial schemes on time, says that his plan for the docks site provides an opportunity to reinforce the central core of the town as a commercial, social and cultural centre. As part of the environmental improvement, his company would be proposing new landmark buildings to complement those being restored.

Gerry Hand of architects Douglas Wallace, which designed the scheme, predicts "a very exciting" development for Drogheda. "We believe that this will act as a catalyst for the rejuvenation of the centre of Drogheda with the rehabilitation of all the old stone buildings and the development of the riverfront with marinas, promenades, bars and cafes to maximise the tourist potential of the river."

The site is located down river from St Mary's Bridge and backs on to Marsh Road, which in turn backs on to the Dublin Road at a higher level. The site has about 300 metres of frontage on to the river.

It was previously the location of Cairnes brewery, an iron foundry for locomotives, a salt works and most recently, of McGowan's Engineering Works and a Lakelands grain store.

The possibility of providing a new pedestrian bridge east of St Mary's Bridge, along with the existing medieval street pattern, suggests that many adjoining areas might at some future time be pedestrianised. Ultimately, such a scheme might extend the main shopping street across the Boyne to the southside.

Edmund Douglas of agents Douglas Newman Good has had an exceptionally positive response to the proposed scheme from leading Irish and overseas traders.