Dublin Corporation has given the go-ahead to a huge new shopping centre for O'Connell Street, incorporating a 15-screen cinema and at least a dozen restaurants on the site of the old Carlton.
Work on the centre, which the developers say will cost more than £100 million and create 1,000 jobs, is expected to begin next summer. However, An Taisce is unhappy with the proposed height of the building, and is expected to appeal the decision to approve the plan as it stands. "Effectively they are putting 14 cinemas on the roof of the existing Carlton," a spokesman said.
Proposals for the development - the work of the Carlton Group - include a facade on O'Connell Street almost three times the length of Clerys. The centre will stretch back two blocks to Moore Street and the Ilac Centre, its continental-style galleria forming a new pedestrian street.
A spokesman for the developers said yesterday they were aiming to restore "middle-class activity" in O'Connell Street, bringing people to the area in the evenings. The centre's restaurants would be "mostly fine dining," with "no fast food", he said.
The development will have five floors of 100,000 square feet, consisting of 40 shop units, department stores, cinemas as well as the restaurants. A multiplex cinema is expected to be built on the top floor, with UCI International already expressing interest in running it. There will also be a 750space underground car park.
The Carlton Group, headed by businessman Mr Richard Quirke, was involved in the first competition to build the national conference centre, but this ended in a legal dispute.
The group, which is in discussions with several Irish and international retail tenants interested in taking space in the centre, says it will take three years to construct the complex which could open in late 2001 or early 2002.
The developers are offering to "glaze in" part of Moore Street, providing all-weather protection for street traders. The centre fulfils many of the criteria set down in Dublin Corporation's Integrated Area Plan for O'Connell Street. Retail surveys have pointed out the upper west side of O'Connell Street has significantly lower levels of pedestrian traffic than the rest of the street and the popularity of Henry Street prevents many people going further up the street.