Revised plans for St Stephen's Green centre lodged
Generated Planned Redevelopment Of The Green Puter Image Stephen's St Centre Shopping
The owners of St Stephen’s Green shopping centre in Dublin have revised their €100m rejuvenation plan for the centre in response to council concerns.
In revised plans lodged with Dublin City Council, Davy Real Estate has added extra retail and food and beverage uses along with a two-screen cinema to the development.
In March, the council told Davy Real Estate entity DTDL Ltd that it had “serious concerns” over the planned reduction in retail and food and beverage floor space in the rejuvenation mixed-use scheme for the St Stephen’s Green centre which opened in 1988.
Now, in revised plans, the applicants are proposing to replace a first-floor office plan with a new mall with additional retail, food and beverage and cultural uses.
DTLD Ltd is also planning a new cinema at basement level with capacity for 180 persons across two screens along with art exhibition space at first-floor level and a new ’town-hall’ space.
The applicants are also proposing a redesign overhaul of the scheme by BKD Architects.
In a planning report, planning consultants John Spain & Associates said that the revisions also include a new publicly accessible restaurant at fourth-floor level with feature scenic lifts.
Mr Spain said there will be 25,989sq m of publicly accessible uses which is a drop of only 398sq m on the 26,387sq m of publicly accessible areas in the development today.
Mr Spain said that the revised plans “include for a variety of uses across multiple floors within the development”.
Property consultants Bannon told the council that the redevelopment will be very positive for Dublin’s retail core and will improve the retail and food and beverage offering while addressing the deficit at the centre in availability of larger retail units.
Bannon said that the upper floor retail space in the existing centre “is fundamentally flawed and has in the long term proven to be unviable and of no benefit to the centre”.
Bannon said that half of the second-floor retail space “is vacant whilst a further third is occupied by retailers who fail to derive sufficient customers to cover their overheads”.
The report said that the upper floors have failed to attract sustainable retail operators for over 30 years "which are now either vacant or occupied by retailers on life support with unviable businesses”.
Bannon also said that the quality of retailer interest in the ground floor units has lagged the market due to the poor layout, configuration, and profile of the units.
It said that there has been no retailer interest in the upper floor units despite vacancy levels across the market.
A decision is due on the application later this year.