Limerick ‘has a lot of retail space but lacks factory units’

WHILE Limerick has a huge amount of new shopping space to offer retail newcomers such as Marks & Spencer, the city is short of large factory units for multi-national industries, a breakfast briefing heard yesterday.

Marks & Spencer is inadvanced talks for a 40,000sq ft city centre unit which will employ 250 in its first Limerick outlet.

Paul McNeive of Hamilton Osborne King told more than 200 Limerick business people, there is only one large building of 100,000sq ft available for an industry wishing start up without delay in Limerick.

Mr McNeive, speaking at the briefing at the Castletroy Park Hotel, said when multinationals come and look at a potential location for industry they like to see buildings which are available to them.

“There is one 100,000sq ft building at Plassey Park. It is the only large modern building of its size available in Limerick,” said Mr McNeive.

The void, he said, could be filled through a public private partnership between the local councils and developers.

“More land could be opened up and all the planning permissions obtained for large industrial buildings, and services installed,” he said.

He said it would not be cost effective to have many large factory buildings standing idle.

“But for relatively small money you could have all the site and planning preparatory work completed for units of 200,000sq ft, 100,000sq ft and smaller ones of 50,000sq ft. So you could bring an industrialist to a site and show him exactly where the factory would go,” he said.

There is no shortage of retail space in the city, yesterday’s briefing was told.

JC Gubbins of O’Connor Murphy Gubbins said 1.2 million sq ft of retail space is at planning stage or under construction in the city. This he said presents great opportunities to big retail names and makes the city a very attractive location.

Neil Hyslop of Marks & Spencer told the briefing that Limerick is a key strategic target for his company.

“We are talking to developers and as soon as we can put a deal together we want to be in Limerick.

“The important thing is that we get the right scheme for us and our customers: good access, good car parking and a size in which we can present our full offer of clothes and food to the customers of Limerick,” he said.

The briefing was jointly organised by O’Connor Murphy Gubbins and Hamilton Osborne King.