February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
A spokesman for Lenridge Properties Ltd, the company behind Dundrum town center’s phase two development, said they hope to begin work on the project in the latter part of this year.
A planning application for phase two is currently before D_n Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. It was lodged last February and has since been the subject of requests for further information and clarifications from council planners as well as objections from local residents.
A previous application to develop the site was given planning permission by An Bord Plean_la, the Irish Planning authority, in 2007 but was shelved by the developers.
The current plan, on the site of the original Dundrum shopping center on the onetime bucolic village’s main street, includes the demolition of properties and the development of retail, restaurants, a child minding facility, a medical center and a library, all on four floors, as well as a nine-storey, 96-bedroom hotel.
A spokesman for Lenridge Properties said the company was very confident the development would go ahead.
He said the company would be providing clarification to the council on issues that had been raised and was anticipating the application would be appealed to Bord Plean_la in whatever form it was granted.
“Bord Plean_la is likely to take four to six months to process the application, so we would be looking at beginning development in autumn 2009 at the earliest,” he said.
He said he was also confident the proposed hotel would do very well, since there were none in the area at present.
He said trading at the existing Dundrum town center was strong despite the economic downturn and there was a demand for extra retail in the area.
The spokesman said the company was in discussion with a number of interested parties about taking up tenancies at the development.
“The project is definitely going ahead, there is no question about it,” he said.
Local Labor councilor Aidan Culhane said the council had plans to radically upgrade Dundrum’s main street, which had become very rundown, but there was no point in spending millions on the work if the area was going to become a building site.
He said the developers needed to quickly resolve the issues raised by planners, which included concerns over adequate parking and balance of uses, so that the project could go ahead.