The 22-year-old Athlone Shopping Centre is fighting back against the River Island centre which opened a few weeks ago just across the road and almost cost the Athlone centre the loss of its anchor tenant.
The anchor tenant at the Athlone Shopping Centre is the Quinnsworth food store.
But with the sale of Quinnsworth to Tesco, that company planned to close its branch in the old centre when it opened its new Tesco branch in the River Island centre.
The company which owns the Athlone centre took Tesco to court when the company began to close the Athlone Centre branch and won an order forcing Tesco to continue trading at the centre.
Tesco inherited a 12-year lease in the Athlone Shopping Centre and is now committed to trade there until it can replace or sublet its lease to another food retailer.
The Athlone Shopping Centre's landlord, Wanze Properties Ireland Ltd, has begun renovating the centre, upgrading its 22 units including the Quinnsworth shop.
The centre's manager, Mr Richard Foy, this week said the centre has started fighting back.
The store will be officially reopened on December 8th by one of its regular customers, the Minister for Public Enterprise and local Fianna Fail TD, Ms Mary O'Rourke.
"Quinnsworth is continuing to operate and people are coming back to the centre because it is more community-orientated than the new centre," said Mr Foy.
"People come here to post letters and to get prescriptions from the chemist and other business which they cannot conduct across the road in the new centre."
He said he felt the opening of the River Island centre on its greenfield site on the east side of the main Dublin-Athlone road, will attract shoppers to all the other shops in the town, including the Athlone Centre.
Mr Sean McGorisk, a chemist, said the new centre had been attracting a lot of customers since it opened but now the regular customers were drifting back to the old shops.
"It's been a difficult time for the tenants here but we are going to fight back starting on December 8th with the reopening of the centre.
"We are not prepared to be second-class," he said.