An artist’s impression of the facility at Carrickmines.
Planning permission has been granted for a large new retail and residential development in south Dublin, despite strong opposition from the owners of the Dundrum Town Centre.
An Bord Pleanála has rejected an appeal by several parties including the Dundrum Retail Limited Partnership against the decision of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to approve a €75 million project that will form part of the existing retail park and office development at The Park in Carrickmines.
The developer Iput has plans for a neighbourhood shopping centre including two supermarkets, retail warehouses, restaurant, café, seven-screen cinema, crèche, offices, car showroom, medical centre and indoor skydiving facility as well as 130 apartments on a 10.5 hectare site close to the M50.
The overall development will extend to almost 84,000sq m in four blocks extending in height from two to six storeys.
Commenting on the ruling, Iput said it was “a major step forward in realising our ambition to reinforce Carrickmines Park as the leading out-of-town retail destination in Dublin”.
The development was also opposed by the owners of the cinema multiplex in the Dundrum Town Centre as well as Olivia Buckley, a Fianna Fáil candidate for the Dundrum area in the recent local elections.
DRLP, which is a joint venture between UK property group Hammerson and German insurer Allianz, said it was not opposed to the new development in Carrickmines in principle.
However, it claimed the proposed level of retail floor space was excessive for a neighbourhood centre particularly given there was no significant immediate residential catchment population to justify its scale.
DRLP said the proposed cinema and leisure uses would undermine the viability of existing town and district centres in south Dublin and represented a material contravention of the council’s development plan as well as running contrary to a range of regional and national planning policies.
