Around 20 per cent of Ireland's shopping centre stock has changed hands since 2013 and this includes six of the country's top 10 centres in terms of size with a seventh, Blanchardstown, expected to transact shortly.
This is according to the latest report on the sector from DTZ Sherry FitzGerald, which reports that 40 shopping centres have transacted in recent years. Seventeen of these were in Dublin, with Cork and Tipperary accounting for a further 20 per cent.
However, while the investment market has been busy buying shopping centres, there has been very little new shopping centre added since the crash. Any new space was typically extensions to existing centres, and most of this extra 27,900sq m of space is accounted for by the growth of Liffey Valley, Charlestown in Dublin 11 and Chare Hall in Dublin 17.
“The development pipeline of extra shopping centre space will continue to focus predominantly on extensions but new-builds will complete by the end of the decade,” according to DTZ
The quantum of shopping centre space in the capital stands at 820,000sq m. A further 229,800sq m is in the pipeline for completion between 2017 and 2019 at six centres including Stillorgan Village Centre, Frascati Shopping Centre, The Square Tallaght, Crumlin Shopping Centre, Dublin Central and Cherrywood.
Dublin Central, at the former Carlton cinema site on O’Connell Street, and Cherrywood in south Co Dublin are the only two new-builds in the pipeline, and are expected to be completed in 2019. These will be the first new centres in the State since the Millfield Shopping Centre in Balbriggan was completed in 2011.
