Plans to transform the area of Dublin city centre bounded by Henry Street, O'Connell Street, Abbey Street and Liffey Street have been announced by Arnotts.
The 'Northern Quarter' Development Proposal represents a €700m investment in the city centre. Arnotts is now submitting its proposal for planning permission to Dublin City Council.
Arnotts wants to redevelop the Northern Quarter into a new shopping and entertainment area and plans to have 47 new shops, 17 new cafes, restaurants and bars, 189 apartments and a 152 bed-roomed four star hotel.
As part of the plan, Arnotts says it intends to seek a strategic partner to develop the Northern Quarter. It says a competitive process will start immediately to select this partner.
According to Arnotts, the main aim is of the plan is to recreate Prince's Street as a pedestrian thoroughfare which will become Dublin's 'premier shopping street'. It will connect the centre of O'Connell Street, through to Henry Street, with a new public square at the centre of the development.
The new 189 apartments will act as a catalyst for further residential elements in the heart of the city, Arnotts adds.
'We believe this project is exactly the kind of ambitious, visionary development the area needs', commented Richard Nesbitt, Arnotts' Executive Chairman.
'The Northern Quarter will write the next chapter in the evolving history of Dublin city, retaining the charm of an open-street environment but overlaying it with the dynamism and diversity of a modern European capital,' he added.
Arnotts believed that over the longer term, the new Northern Quarter could act as the catalyst for further development in the Lotts Street area adjacent to the Liffey, extending the grain of smaller spaces and lanes across the river from Temple Bar and connecting the north and south central shopping streets.
