Virtually all of the 70 shops planned for the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre at Quarryvale in west Dublin have already been let three months before the complex is due to open for business. Work on the £100 million shopping centre is on target and many of the traders are currently fitting out their stores.
Only one shop of 3,000 sq ft is still available. David Potter, of agents Hamilton Osborne King, is confident a suitable fashion trader will be found for it in the coming weeks. HOK is also seeking tenants for three restaurants, which will be located alongside a multiplex cinema.
The promoters let most of the other shops by invitation because of the strong line-up of anchor tenants and the fact that the overall size of the centre is capped at 250,000 sq ft.
However, the scarcity factor will not apply for long if South Dublin County Council lifts the cap on the retail element when a new development plan is adopted later this year. The promoters want to double the size of the centre to bring it into line with the successful Blanchardstown Town Centre.
Rents in the Quarryvale centre are easily the highest in the Dublin suburbs because of the limited number of shops available. Rents generally are averaging £60 per sq ft but the Zone A rents range between £130 and £134 per sq ft compared with £170 per sq ft in Henry Street and £200 in Grafton Street.
Liffey Valley will be the first major shopping centre in Ireland without a conventional supermarket. The main anchor will be Marks & Spencer. The overall plan for Liffey Valley envisaged that Tesco would operate a standalone supermarket as soon as the main centre began trading. Tesco was expected to seek planning permission for a superstore of around 70,000 sq ft after agreeing to pay £25 million for an 11acre site in Quarryvale. That plan will now have to be postponed or abandoned following a decision by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, to ban stores over 32,000 sq ft until the overall implications of superstores are looked at.
General Accident has a controlling interest in Liffey Valley, while the balance of the equity is held by the Duke of Westminster's company, Grosvenor Estates. Any further extension to the shopping centre will be owned on a 50-50 basis by Grosvenor Estates and Mr Eoin O'Callaghan of O'Callaghan Properties.
