{"id":166777,"date":"2025-11-06T22:12:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T22:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/166777\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T22:12:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T22:12:13","slug":"blackpool-shopping-centre-aims-to-be-munsters-go-to-retail-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/166777\/","title":{"rendered":"Blackpool Shopping Centre aims to be Munster\u2019s go-to retail spot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Buoyant occupancy levels and a \u20ac1.5m upgrade in its 25th year are underpinning plans to turn Blackrock Shopping Centre and Retail Park into to one of Munster\u2019s premier retail destinations.<\/p>\n

The investment by Lugus Capital and Patron Capital follows their acquisition last year of the entire complex, which also includes office accommodation<\/p>\n

Roger Dineen, head of commercial real estate with Lugus Capital, said the asset was attractive to them as it was the only shopping centre on Cork City\u2019s northside and it was located in a rapidly expanding catchment area.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr PJ Hourican cutting the tape to officially open the new Dunnes Stores in Blackpool Shopping Centre in 2000, watched by Joe Gavin, Cork City manager and the late Clayton Love jnr, developer. Picture: Richard Mills.<\/p>\n

The Irish property investment and asset management firm bought the shopping centre and retail park last year for just under \u20ac50m in a joint venture with London-headquartered private equity firm Patron Capital. Mr Dineen said the investment underscored their commitment to creating a market-leading destination for the Blackpool community and the wider Munster region. He pointed to the recently upgraded Douglas Court as \u201ca good example\u201d of what could be achieved, \u201cwith investment from Dunnes as a starting point, and that sort of lifts the tide and others follow suit, and it creates a nice environment and that is a good example of what we are trying to achieve\u201d. Like Douglas Court, Dunnes Stores is the anchor tenant in Blackpool.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the new Douglas Court owners \u2014 the O\u2019Leary family, formerly of O\u2019Leary Insurances \u2014 told the Irish Examiner there had been a 7% increase in footfall in year one of their ownership. They bought the southside shopping centre for \u20ac21.5m in January 2024.<\/p>\n

Mr Dineen said footfall at Blackpool Retail Park is up 8% since they acquired it in September 2024 and occupancy levels are high. All but one of 19 units in the retail park are occupied, and Mr Dineen said they are in negotiations with a prospective tenant. The unit was previously occupied by Next homestore. Office accommodation in the complex has occupancy rates of c 90%.<\/p>\n

Across the road in the shopping centre, just five units of a total of 45 are vacant and Mr Dineen said they are \u201cin active negotiations\u201d in relation to two of the five.<\/p>\n

One of the centre\u2019s larger units, vacated by troubled fashion retailer New Look earlier this year, has been filled by Eason, a national brand whose arrival Mr Dineen said was \u201ca good endorsement of the shopping centre\u201d. Other new arrivals include tech-repair specialists Hugmie and cosmetic clinic Kerry Hanaphy Aesthetics, while the retail park has welcomed Danish homestore Jysk.<\/p>\n

\"Ireland\u2019sIreland\u2019s \u201cLip Queen\u201d Kerry Hanaphy officially unveiled her long-awaited Cork clinic at Blackpool Shopping Centre last month in the company of Victoria Secret and Paul Ryder from Dublin. Picture:\u00a0Gerard McCarthy <\/p>\n

Mr Dineen said, in addition to new arrivals, they\u2019ve had five lease renewals, where tenants have committed to stay on, including Cardfactory, health store Holland & Barrett, and Soundstore.<\/p>\n

The asset manager said they had \u201caspirations to expand the offering\u201d in Blackpool, which they were drawn to because of the potential it held as Cork City\u2019s only northside shopping centre. He said they had also looked at Douglas Court and Douglas Village shopping centres, when they were for sale.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been managing retail assets for 20-odd years and what attracted us to Blackpool is that it\u2019s the only shopping centre on the northside of the city. It\u2019s a rapidly expanding catchment area, with a lot of housing being built around there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CrowdsCrowds pouring in on the opening day of the new Dunnes Stores in Blackpool in September 2000. Picture: Richard Mills.<\/p>\n

He said they liked the kind of asset \u201cwhere you have a grocery anchor and a number of shops\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat allows us to do the upgrades and then lease out that space,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The current upgrade involves retiling the entire shopping mall, due for completion this month, while work to smarten shopfronts, seating areas, lighting and communal areas will get under way next February. Mr Dineen said they then plan to move on to upgrading the entrances to the shopping centre.<\/p>\n

While they hadn\u2019t dropped tenants\u2019 rents, he said rents in general are \u201cmore affordable\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we are looking at assets, we put a big focus on that aspect of it: What actually is the rent and what can a retailer afford to pay? But I think the legacy of high rents has refixed to affordable levels. Retail is pretty healthy right now, rents have rebased to where it\u2019s manageable, and that\u2019s a good place to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Dineen said a lot of shopping centres were now 25-30 years old \u2014 none have been built since 2012 \u2014 and that while many hadn\u2019t been invested in over the years, that was starting to change.<\/p>\n

Asked if Lugus Capital had further acquisitions in their sights in the Cork area, Mr Dineen said they were \u201calways on the lookout for retail assets\u201d, although he ruled out up-for-sale Charleville Shopping Centre.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are tracking what might come to the market, but there\u2019s been a lot [of shopping centres] traded in the past five years, and we haven\u2019t seen any of them come back to the market yet, like Douglas Village and Douglas Court and a number of others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lugus Capital, founded in 2013 by Peter Horgan and Tim Cahill, manages a portfolio worth approximately \u20ac900m. Assets under management in Cork are valued at \u20ac70m and include City Gate in Mahon, as well as Blackpool Shopping Centre, originally developed by the Love family, and acquired by Varde Partners in 2014 for \u20ac115m, before being sold at a 57% discount a decade later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Buoyant occupancy levels and a \u20ac1.5m upgrade in its 25th year are underpinning plans to turn Blackrock Shopping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,56004,18,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-166777","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-commercial-property-munster-to-let","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}