The Irish retail market continues to bear the brunt of the current economic downturn, according to the latest bimonthly retail bulletin from CBRE.

The Irish retail market continues to bear the brunt of the current economic downturn, according to the latest bi-monthly bulletin from CBRE.

2009 was the worst year in living memory for the Irish retail property sector. Are there any signs of an improvement on the horizon for 2010?

Chartered Land’s proposed Dublin Central development, on the Carlton Cinema site on O’Connell Street, has been rejected by An Bord Pleanala.

Irish wholesaler Barry’s has launched a direct challenge to discounters Lidl and Aldi, which have been thriving in the recession, with the trial of its Buy Lo format. A trial store opened on the Tougher Industrial Estate in Newbridge and reportedly traded well before it was forced to close due to planning issues.

Parkway Properties has started construction of the 17,000-sq m Millfield development. Anchored by a 10,000-sq m Tesco Extra store, the scheme will provide 30 shop units over two levels served by 692 parking spaces.

River Island has agreed to double the size of its store in the Square at Tallaght, only nine months after it opened in the centre. Coffee shop operator The Street has also signed up for a store.

An Bord Pleanala has approved Regeneration Developments’ €350m Opera Centre scheme in Limerick. The 38,000-sq m project will create the biggest shopping centre in Ireland’s mid-west, with two floors of retail above a three-level underground car park. Anglo Irish Bank holds a 50 per cent stake in the project.

TK Maxx is planning to open new stores in Galway and Portlaoise before Christmas 2009. The move comes despite a planning wrangle in Waterford, where the local authority ruled that the product mix in the TK Maxx store on the Butlerstown Retail Park was in breach of its planning consent which specified that only bulky goods could be sold.

TopShop has signed up to anchor O’Callaghan Developments’ €500m Opera Avenue development off St Patrick’s Street and Academy Street in Cork. Opera Avenue will bring over 20,000 sq m of new retail space to Cork city centre. The development will also include 61 apartments.

Belfast’s Victoria Square has signed Abercrombie & Fitch’s Southern Californian brand Hollister. The 8,000-sq ft store will be the fast-growing brand’s first in Ireland and is expected to open in late October. The letting will boost Victoria Square’s fashion line-up which already includes names like Ted Baker, Reiss, Firetrap, All Saints and Urban Outfitters.

The opening of Ikea’s Dublin store has been warmly welcomed by Irish shoppers who have been flocking to the store in Ballymun in droves. At times the store has been so busy that the Swedish retailer has been forced to close its car park.

The savage recession is hitting Ireland’s retailers hard but opinion is split on whether two government measures will have the desired effect of easing the sector’s woes.

Shopping centre service charges are under pressure as never before. In the UK the major landlords have agreed a plan of action that will save retailers as much as 20 per cent on their service charge bills. And in the Republic, retailers are demanding across-the-board rent reductions, so service charges are sure to be on the agenda as well.

The Quays shopping centre in Newry is celebrating after becoming the first shopping centre in Northern Ireland to be awarded the Investors in People (IiP) accreditation.

Humility is not a word one would naturally associate with modern professional rugby. Admittedly, rugby has historically been viewed as something of a gentleman’s sport compared with its nearest sibling, soccer, but modern players bathe in the limelight their aptitude with a rugby ball affords. Yet, humility and modesty are two defining characteristics of Lions legend and commercial property consultant, Fergus Slattery.

Superquinn has taken drastic economy measures in the face of intense competition, including from the surge in consumer spending by shoppers going North across the border.

Swords Pavilions has continnued its bid to become the top retail destination on the north side of Dublin with a string of top fashion signings. The centre recently welcomed a host of major new stores including the new Peter Mark concept store Style Club with its ultra-modern approach to styling and exclusive gents barbers, an H&M superstore, Tommy Hilfiger as well as Elverys Sports, Hughes & Hughes and GameStop.

An Bord Pleanala has turned down the retail element of the highly ambitous scheme planned for Greystones, Co Wicklow, by two of Ireland’s best known retail property developers, Sean Dunne and Sean Mulryan.

Despite the highly publicised troubles of the Irish banking sector, it seems that some funding is available for further retail development.

Galway’s long-awaited new shopping centre looks set for further delays. Two years ago, ambitious plans were announced by CIE, the State public transport group, to develop the Ceannt Quarter scheme in the heart of Galway city.

The Junction One outlet centre in Antrim, Northern Ireland, is bucking the economic downturn with a strong sales uplift. The centre reports overall sales up 20 per cent year-on-year. And footfall at the 245,000-sq ft mixed outlet and full-price scheme was also up with over 50 per cent of the stores recording double-digit growth figures.

The credit crunch means the shopping centre development boom is over. So what schemes are on site, and what schemes have been put on ice, asks Hugh Oram

Developer Sean Dunne retains ambitions to be a major player in the Irish retail scene, discovers Hugh Oram

Hugh Oram looks at the inexorable rise of the hard discounters Aldi and Lidl

Tough times mean retailers will be seeking out every last penny, while landlords need to maximise income. Hannah Prevett investigates how managers can handle conflicting interests

With smaller marketing budgets becoming more prevalent, how can shopping centres make the case to potential advertisers? Hannah Prevett investigates

Shopping centres are having to work harder than ever to get people through their doors. But there’s a fine line between well co-ordinated, managed events and purely promotional activity, as Hannah Prevett discovers

The jury is out on where property values are going - some analysts forecast a crash, others believe a soft landing is most likely. While this year will see a slowdown in new openings, the development pipeline is still operating, with a new generation of bigger and more complex schemes on the drawing board.

Readers of Shopping Centre and Shopping Centre Ireland are invited to vote for their favourite retailer and developer. The winners' outstanding contributions to the shopping centre scene across the island of Ireland will be recognised at the awards dinner in Dublin's Conrad Hotel on 18 September 2008.

Hamleys is to open its first Irish store at Dundrum, the 850,000-sq ft shopping centre 5km to the south of Dublin. And Bose and Gerry Weber have also signed up for stores.

Joe O'Reilly's Chartered Land has lodged the planning application for its 1.7 million-sq ft Dublin Central project, linking Henry Street and O'Connell Street in Dublin's Northside.

Planning permission has been granted for the Irish Midlands' biggest retail scheme in Mullingar.

The highly-rated research team at CBRE in Dublin has moved to quell fears of oversupply in the Irish retail market, despite the surge in new development in recent years and a downturn in consumer confidence.

US fashion giant Gant is to open its first stand-alone store in Ireland at Dundrum, the 850,000 sq ft shopping centre 5km to the south of Dublin the centre. The Gant store will trade from 5,800 sq ft over two floors and will be situated in the centre's Pembroke District close to Harvey Nichols, Urban Outfitters and LK Bennett.

Arecent survey by CBRE showed strong penetration of the Irish market by international retailers, led by the UK. So is there still a place for Irish retailers and Irish retail brands in Ireland's shopping mix?

Now that the Athlone Town Centre is up and running as a very successful new regional shopping centre, questions are starting to get asked about whether the wider Midlands area is going to become over-shopped, that too many mall development plans are in the pipeline, especially as consumer spending slows down. But this hasn't deterred the developers.

Cork-based Owen O'Callaghan is one of Ireland's best- known retail property developers, but he's in the public eye for all the wrong reasons - the ongoing Mahon Tribunal at Dublin Castle enquiring into corrupt payments for politicians.

When Harvey Norman announced, with a modest fanfare, just over five years ago, that it was to open two stores in Ireland in the summer of 2003, no one in Irish retailing took much notice. It may have been a big noise in electrical and computer retailing in its native Australia, but it had rarely come to attention in Irish retailing.

In an unprecedented time of challenges, the All Ireland Retail Property Forum unites all sectors of the industry

The highly-rated research team at CBRE in Dublin has moved to quell fears of oversupply in the Irish retail market, despite the surge in new development in recent years and a downturn in consumer confidence.

US fashion giant Gant is to open its first stand-alone store in Ireland at Dundrum, the 850,000 sq ft shopping centre 5km to the south of Dublin the centre. The Gant store will trade from 5,800 sq ft over two floors and will be situated in the centre’s Pembroke District close to Harvey Nichols, Urban Outfitters and LK Bennett.

Planning permission has been granted for the Irish Midlands' biggest-ever retail scheme in Mullingar.

Over the last decade retailers have capitalised on the growing affluence of Irish consumers and expanded into the Irish Republic's E24.4bn retail market, which has grown by 34 per cent over the last five years. As major new shopping centres lift customer spend and a relaxation of store size limits enables development, major international retailers from Ikea to Lidl are being attracted to Ireland's shores.