ShoppingCentres: A €150 million mixed-use development - which includes a four-star hotel, huge shopping centre, apartments and multiplex cinema - will transform Drogheda. Jack Fagan reports
Drogheda's poor reputation as a retail and leisure centre is about to change. The town is on the threshold of a retail revolution and, for good measure, it is to get a range of leisure facilities, including a top class hotel, as part of a €150 million rejuvenation programme in the docklands.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, was in Drogheda last Friday to perform the topping out ceremony on a four-star hotel being built alongside the new Scotch Hall Shopping Centre which is to open before Christmas 2005.
Apart from the hotel and the shopping centre, the eight-acre site running along the River Boyne will also incorporate civic facilities as well as a multiplex cinema, 700 car-parking spaces, 140 apartments and riverside bars and restaurants.
It is the largest mixed-use development under way along the east coast outside Dundrum and, when completed, will switch the main focus of the town to the waterfront site. This will be helped by the opening of a pedestrian bridge over the Boyne from the opposite bank, the provision of pedestrian boardwalks along the river and the building of a floating pontoon for yachts.
The huge development is being carried out by Gerry Barrett's company, Edward Holdings, which is also involved in major schemes in Galway and Dublin. The large turnout by business and civic leaders at Friday's ceremonies underlined the broad support in the town for the new centre, which is expected to anchor the redevelopment of the entire docklands area.
Drogheda is one of the few large towns in the country to have missed out on the shopping boom of the past two decades. Shopping in Drogheda up to now has been confined mainly to West Street, where there is only limited car-parking.
A second shopping centre being built in Drogheda has been in the pipeline for years but has not yet announced an anchor tenant.
Scotch Hall has no such problems, having persuaded Dunnes Stores to switch from West Street to the unashamedly modern centre which has been designed by Gerry Hand of Douglas Wallace Architects. Dunnes will operate a supermarket and department store out of 7,430 sq m (80,000 sq ft) of retail space - almost one-third of the entire trading area being built.
There will also be 60 other shops on two levels including two further anchor tenants. Next has already committed to taking a store of 1,393 sq m (15,000 sq ft).
Many other UK multiples will be represented but the developers are also anxious to have a good mix of local tenants, some of whom will undoubtedly vacate West Street, like AIB, which is shortly to sell its second branch in the street.
Edward Douglas of letting agent Douglas Newman Good has already agreed letting terms on about half the shops.
A study by Behaviour & Attitudes has shown that most shoppers in the Drogheda area who leave the town end up either in the Pavilions in Swords or Blanchardstown Town Centre.
Edward Holdings is convinced that it can greatly reduce the leakage of money out of the town by providing a high quality centre with a strong architectural style and many new trends that will appeal to shoppers.
The main access for cars will be across a bridge/ramp on the Dublin road that will run across the lower March Road to the second of two floors of shopping. Car-parking will be on the third and fourth floors, directly over the two floors.
Edward Holdings is also putting a lot of emphasis on the importance of the 104-bedroom hotel to the overall scheme.
Drogheda has largely lost out in the tourism boom of recent years because of its limited hotel facilities.
The four-star hotel overlooking the Boyne will be the second opened by Edward Holdings' new subsidiary company, Monogram Hotels.
The first hotel, The G, will be Galway's newest five-star and will have 96 top class rooms as well as a spa.
