RetailParks: South Dublin is to get its first large scale retail warehousing park. Development work is to start this March on the first phase of the 50-acre park, which will be strategically located beside the Carrickmines intersection of the M50 in Dublin 18. Jack Fagan, Property Editor, reports.

The project will also include a large office element, two hotels, shops and restaurants and will have an end value of around €450 million when it is completed by Park Developments, one of the largest privately owned development companies in the country. It bought the site four years ago for £36.5 million (€46.35 million).

Park's managing director Michael Cotter has assembled a top class planning team to oversee the development of the park, including international master planners Bruce Gilbreth and Associates, Chris Lyons of CPM Architects in Dublin and town planner Fergal McCabe. Paul McNeive and Michael Conroy of Hamilton Osborne King are also advising the developer.

Planning permission has already been granted for the first phase of The Park, which will begin trading as soon as the South-Eastern Motorway opens before the end of next year.

The letting agents report intense competition between many of the top multiples for units in the park because of its proximity to densely populated middle and upper middle class areas.

Retail warehousing is now one of the fastest growing retail areas as shoppers move away from congested cities and towns for bulky items such as furniture, carpets, and white goods.

The overall planning concept in Carrickmines provides for an interesting mixture of high quality commercial buildings and an integrated urban centre with a broad appeal.

There will be about 10 separate retail warehouses with a total floor area of 15,000 sq m (161,458 sq ft). The largest unit, a DIY store, will have a floor area of 6,000 sq m (64,583 sq ft). Traders pitching for the outlet are believed to include B & Q, Homebase, Woodies, Atlantic and Harvey Norman.

Rents generally are likely to be around 376 per sq m (€35 per sq ft).

Park Developments plans to retain ownership of all the units with the exception of two motor showrooms which are to be built at the front of the site. A motor distributor is understood to be paying around €7 million for a two-acre site and construction costs for a double height showroom which will have a floor area of 1,200 sq m (12,916 sq ft).

Some top names, such as Marks and Spencer Simply Food, Tesco Express and Donnybrook Fair, are likely to be interested in leasing a neighbourhood convenience store which will have about 700 sq m (7,534 sq ft). The rent in this case will be €538 per sq m (€50 per sq ft).

Although planning permission has been granted for a four-star 120-bedroom hotel on the site, the developers are expected to seek revised planning for 200 rooms in the near future. This follows a study by Management Horizons Europe which found there is a "significant undersupply" of high quality, four and five-star hotels in south Dublin compared to other European cities.

The Carrickmines campus will also have a significant office content (35,302 sq m/379,987 sq ft in six four and five-storey blocks) which will put it in direct competition with Sandyford, where continuing traffic congestion is hampering the letting market. Once the South Eastern Motorway is open, The Park will have a direct motorway link from Dublin Airport on Dublin's northside all the way across to the Bray road on the southside.

The second phase of the development, currently the subject of a further planning application, provides for a broadly similar range of facilities as those in the first stage. Most significantly, permission is being sought for a 16-storey over basement, 198-room apart-hotel with a double height motor showroom on the ground floor. There will be a further 5,000 sq m (53,819 sq ft) of retail space as well as more offices, an enterprise centre, cultural building, bars, restaurants, crèche and an occasional mornings-only country market with 72 stalls. There will be no less than 3,500 car-parking spaces on site and parking for several hundred bicycles.

Park Developments has been one of the most dynamic development companies in recent years, being equally active in both the commercial and residential markets. It is currently completing Mount St Annes in Milltown, easily the most successful residential development in the city over the past decade.