Council in talks with LDA on building housing on part of Ballymun Shopping Centre site – Dublin Inquirer

Dublin City Council has been talking to the Land Development Agency (LDA) about building housing on part of the Ballymun Shopping Centre site. 

“DCC has opened negotiations with the LDA to explore their interest in developing part of the Ballymun Shopping Centre site,” a council spokesperson said. “This engagement is at an early stage.”

A spokesperson for the LDA confirmed these talks. “The LDA and DCC are already partnering on a number of housing developments in Dublin including Bluebell Waterways, Cromcastle, Cherry Orchard Point and St. Teresa’s Gardens,” he said. 

“Early state negotiations are taking place between the LDA and DCC on the possible development of the former Ballymun Shopping Centre site,” he said.

The shopping centre’s been closed a decade and demolished for years, leaving a big empty site in the middle of the area – and a lack of shops, and a lack of a central hub for the community. 

The council has tried for years to bring in some kind of replacement for the shopping centre, but hasn’t managed it yet. Building more housing, which would bring more people to the area, with more spending power, could help with that, says Ballymun for Business chair Robert Murphy.

“A gaping black hole” 

In 2014, after the financial crash, the council bought the shopping centre site. 

In 2021, it pulled down the shopping centre, clearing the way for a new push to redevelop the site. 

The following year, the council put out feelers to see who might want to build on a chunk of the site. 

For the western part of the site, the plan was for a focus on homes, but also spaces for jobs or educational uses, while the ground floors should be used for the kinds of things that the public can access – like a pub, children’s play area, crèche, or gym.

For the eastern part of the site, next to Main Street, the plan was for temporary uses to draw people in with markets, say, or pop-up food stalls or an ice rink. Metrolink plans means a more permanent development will have to wait, councillors have said.

The council’s call for proposals brought in six submissions, but none of them were what the council was looking for, it seems, according to a council report. 

So nothing’s happened.

In the same way that other areas of Dublin developed around their town centres, Ballymun developed around its shopping centre, says Edward McManus, a pharmacist who used to operate out of it. 

But that’s gone now, he says. 

“There are some genuinely lovely parts of Ballymun, but there’s a gaping black hole where the shopping centre was,” he says. “Ten years on from the closure of the shopping centre, nothing’s there.” 

“It’s all very well for Dublin City Council to be delaying these things but it has real consequences for people’s lives,” says McManus, who stood for Aontú in last month’s local elections as a candidate to represent Ballymun on the council.

Getting another agency, such as the LDA, involved in doing something with the site might move things forward in a way that the council has failed to do on its own, McManus said.

What to build?

If the LDA does move forward with housing on part of the old Ballymun Shopping Centre site, it should be affordable purchase, cost-rental and social housing, says local Social Democrats Councillor Mary Callaghan. 

“My frustration is there are so many plans in place [for housing] for Ballymun, they just need to get on with it,” she said.

McManus, the local pharmacist, says that while the LDA’s focus is on building housing, the area needs more than that.

“My understanding is that the LDA are going to get involved,” McManus said. “I suppose the country needs more housing”, but “if that was replaced purely by housing I don’t think that would be the answer”. 

“We need to move to a more European model of development – that is, developing communities not just housing,” McManus said. 

He said he’d like to see a big Dunnes Stores or a Tesco, somewhere people can buy clothing. Among other things.

The problem for businesses in Ballymun is that with the shopping centre closed, there’s very little reason for people to come there to do their shopping. So they take their money elsewhere. 

If there was a critical mass of shops in the heart of Ballymun again, more people from the area would go there to do their shopping, which would be good for the new businesses and the existing ones, he says. 

But both Callaghan and Robert Murphy, chair of Ballymun for Business, say adding a lot more new shops isn’t going to work without first building more housing to bring in more potential customers, with more money.

“I’m not just saying this because my SuperValu closed, but the local economy is not great at all,” says Murphy, who runs a Centra and a post office in the area – and used to run a SuperValu there, before it closed in November.

“Unless we attract another 3,000 or 4,000 people into the area, that’ll remain the same,” Murphy said. 

Opening more businesses with the same population and income levels “is just ludicrous”, he said. 

“I’d welcome the news [of the LDA getting involved], but I’d be cautious of time frames and delay,” Murphy said.

“Given the council’s record on delay, and the LDA’s, this could go on for at least another five years,” he said. “It’s all just too slow and it’s disheartening for locals.” 

Callaghan said that when investors look at building a new shopping centre in Ballymun, they don’t see it generating enough income for them to justify the cost of developing it. 

There’s just not a lot of spending power in the area, she says. 

So redevelopment of the shopping centre site should include a mix of businesses and housing, to bring in customers to support new retail – which could also be opened there, Callaghan says. 

Maybe a big government body could take some office space there too, she says. Those office workers would also bring more spending power to the area, she says.

Although Murphy is doubtful about this proposal. “I wouldn’t agree,” he said. 

Office workers are only around 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday, and might have a canteen in their building, or bring packed lunches, he says. 

“It’s housing, housing, housing” the area needs, he said.

In the meantime, construction has finally started on the long-awaited revamp of the plaza in front of the Axis centre in Ballymun. 

“It’s going to look fantastic,” says Callaghan, the Social Democrats councillor.