Decision made on new shopping mall for Limerick city centre

COUNCIL planners have rejected proposals for a new shopping mall in the heart of Limerick - as it does not contain housing or rise up high enough.

As revealed by Limerick Live, developers are planning to build a two-storey shopping mall at a site in the city centre which has been vacant since the mid-2000s.

Under the plans, Multi-Storey (Limerick), a firm headquartered on the city’s riverside, is seeking to build nine units over two floors at the junction of Anne Street and Catherine Street.

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The land was once home to Finucane’s Electrical, which moved to the suburbs in 2006, with its old city centre premises demolished a year later.

The area has been largely unused since.

According to a blueprint submitted to council, the new retail units will measure between 44 square metres and 75 square metres.

Four will be located on the first floor, five on the ground floor, and these will be built next to an existing retail unit which houses a hairdresser.

A mall will link the first floor units.

The kind of retail proposed is unclear, with one of the directors of Multi-Storey (Limerick) Eva Clarke not previously returning a request for comment.

But the council has rejected the planning application. Its planners pointed to policies which support “high quality mixed-use developments that include residential uses”.

“In particular, as the proposal does not seek to maximise building height through high quality design and does not include the provision of any residential uses, it is considered the development does not meet the national, regional or local planning objectives to promote compact growth, urban regeneration and sustainable city centre development,” council stated in its decision letter.

Granting permission, the authority argued, would “set an undesirable precedent for other developments in the vicinity of the site and would be contrary to the proper planning and sustainable development of the area.”

Heritage body An Taisce’s Limerick branch were the only group to object to the planning application.

It criticised the “limited level of ambition” and “weak design quality” of the scheme.

There have been a number of proposals for the patch of land, which have never seen the light of day.