Re: Re: The Park, Carrickmines

DLRCC is an unmitigated disaster.

Their latest bit of BS is a very academic decision, little or nothing will happen. Several of the units in the Park are empty; furniture & electrical retailers are in administration or closed/liquidated. It is a disjointed place with two centres, one based on Woodies, the other with Harvey bloody Norman and TJMax. Extra-wide boring shopfronts, unbroken blandness. Nobody in their right mind would move there, the footfall is too low and totally car based. There were rumours that the Park was hoping to develop a motor center, but then the motor trade tanked and Sandyford was too established.

I cannot see Superquinn going to the Park, they have enough problems as it is. Dunnes is now stopping the 24 hour opening at C.Court, Lidl have shops at Pottery Road and in Deansgrange, so that leaves Aldi (believed to be less successful than Lidl) and they have nothing in the area.

DunLaoghaire has been a disaster since the 1970’s. The ITGWU members would not cooperate on late opening, so Cornellscourt took off. Those workers in Lees, Cassidys, McCullaghs, Findlaters, Liptons/Williams saw their jobs disappear. The demolition of the Adelphi cinema left a hole in the town, cutting it in half for a couple of decades, then that was filled by crap offices (3M in particular). The linear layout, with a row of houses on one side makes the place shopper unfriendly and its semi-pedestrianization is a nonsense.

There is a high business closure rate in Dun Laoghaire for several reasons – e.g. huge rates, crap parking & a surfeit of hyper-vigilant wardens, a drug treatment centre off the main street, so the skangers move between there and the main street junk food kips. Landlords are desperate for any tenant so cheapo shops abound. Dunnes owns a huge block in the centre of the town and are (were?) going to develop – all units were/are leased on short leases so the place looks crap.

rant over
K.