AN £80 million leisure and entertainment complex, including Dublin's first Olympic-size swimming-pool, planned for a site off the M1 near Santry in north Dublin, is in jeopardy following a decision by An Bord Pleanala to reduce the cinema element from 16 screens to eight.
The British company behind the project, Stannifer, had undertaken to provide the swimming-pool and a water-world at a cost of £15 million in return for a 16-screen multiplex and other commercial activities, including a hotel. Sources close to the company said it would be reviewing the entire project in the coming weeks. However, Dublin Corporation, which viewed the centre as a major coup for the city with the potential to boost tourism and business in north Dublin, is still confident that it will proceed. An inspector from the planning appeals board had recommended that the volume of retail space should be reduced from 96,000 to 53,800 sq ft but the board opted instead to reduce the number of cinemas to eight and the total capacity to 1,800 seats.
The board ruled that the facade of the main building should be redesigned at the upper level and that the new design should have less bulk and mass "so as to reduce the level of enclosure to the proposed linear park".
The board also ruled that a petrol filling station and two free-standing restaurants at the entrance to the site should be omitted from the development. A 152-bedroom hotel is to be relocated on the site. In addition to providing the swimming-pool and water-world facilities, the centre would have provided a share of the profits for the corporation in addition to a capital sum.
The Olympic Leisure Complex was planned as a 456,000 sq ft development on a 38-acre site owned by Dublin Corporation on Coolock Lane and Oscar Traynor Road.
It would have been the largest integrated leisure facility of its kind in Ireland or the UK.
As well as the 50-metre swimming-pool and waterworld, the scheme was to have included the cinema complex, 96,000 sq ft of themed leisure retailing, a health and fitness centre, family entertainment centre, hotel, restaurants and cafes and a nightclub. A surface car-park was to accommodate 1,700 cars, but the planning appeals board has ordered that traffic be monitored over a three-year period. Any additional parking deemed necessary should be provided either underground or in a decked system at the north-eastern side beside Coolock Lane.
In the early 1990s, a smaller leisure and sporting facility planned for the same site by another UK company, Landshape, was widely promoted but never got off the ground. The overall concept for the Stannifer scheme is based on similar developments by the company in the US. The company had envisaged that visits to the Santry complex would be of longer than usual duration. Visitors arriving in the morning or early afternoon for a swim or a visit to the health and fitness centre would then be inclined to stay for a meal and go on to see a film.
