Northside Shopping Centre is a shopping centre located in Coolock, a suburban area in Dublin's Northside. One of the earliest shopping centres in Ireland, it was built in 1970 and is the only one with a swimming pool. It has been expanded, refurbished and renovated a number of times and passed through the hands of the National Asset Management Agency, before being sold to Patron Capital. Patron then sold the centre for a sum of €50 million in 2019 to German company Am Alpha.
History
The centre was originally constructed in 1970 as an open-air facility, designed by Stephenson Gibney & Associates for Green Property Co Ltd in association with Dublin Corporation at the cost of £1 million.[2]
Northside, along with Stillorgan Shopping Centre, which remained open-air for decades, was one of the first modern shopping centres in Ireland. The local authority, then Dublin Corporation, arranged for a municipal swimming pool to be constructed above the shopping centre.
Renovations and extension in the 1980s and 2008 have covered most of Sam Stephenson's original open-space concept.[3]
In 2013 it was announced that a €5 million further refurbishment was about to commence in the centre.[4] This followed the loss of the anchor non-food store, a Dunnes Stores branch, and saw the arrival of new shops, including Heatons (with Sportsworld), new dining facilities, and a Well Woman Centre. The refurbishment was completed in late 2016 following a 2-phase modernisation of both interior and exterior.[5]
The centre was numbered among the property assets of NAMA, Ireland's post-recession National Asset Management Agency; it was subsequently sold to Patron Capital for €49m.[6]
