Construction BUSINESS

Property firm Hines has applied for planning permission to build a huge expansion of Liffey Valley Shopping Centre in west Dublin.

The €26m development plan includes an additional 22,000 sq m (236,000 sq ft) of net retail space, 1,800 car parking spaces, a major new civic plaza, and a 2,500-seat Olympic-sized indoor ice arena capable of holding “international ice skating competitions, ice hockey matches and ice entertainment performances”.

If the scheme gets the go-ahead it “has the potential to create up to 450 construction employment opportunities during development approximately 1,500 full and part-time jobs upon completion, bringing the total number of people employed within the centre to over 3,700”, Hines said.

The plan will be the second big extension of Liffey Valley in recent years after the so-called ‘West End Development’. That €26m development, which is due for completion later this year, is barely half the size of the latest plan for the centre.

It is also the latest major product for Hines since it ramped up its Irish operations after the crash. The US firm is already developing a new town centre-style development at Cherrywood in south Dublin.

It took a controlling stake in Liffey Valley along with other owners Grosvenor Britain & Ireland and HSBC private clients in 2013.

While Liffey Valley has been hugely successful since it opened in 1998, it was overtaken by Dundrum Town Centre as the pre-eminent shopping centre in the country.

Hines, however, have been aggressively improving it since the firm took over the day-to-day running of the centre.