Ice rink to open in Cork's North Main Street Shopping Centre

Work has started on North Main Street Shopping Centre ahead of the ONICE rink's opening in November

An ice rink is set to inhabit the former Dunnes Stores unit at Cork's North Main Street Shopping Centre as a new owner of the building plans to "breathe life back into the city centre."

ONICE, which has operated skating rinks at Marina Market for the past three years, will move to the North Main St location. 

Another ice rink firm, Cork on Ice, will now take over the Marina Market location.

ONICE founder Jason Williams said he hoped the seasonal pop-up in the former Dunnes Stores would bring "a struggling part of the city... to life." 

Cosmetic work before the rink's opening on November 6, including a repaint of the front of the shopping centre building, is under way.

The supermarket unit has been empty since it was used as a HSE covid vaccination centre in 2021. 

Before that, it had a short life as an indoor bike parking facility.

The shopping centre was developed in conjunction with a 400-space multi-storey car park in the 1980s, the latter of which is now owned and operated by Cork City Council.

Cork County Council planning records show its developer, Owen O'Callaghan, obtained permission for a skating rink in the building in 2005.

The site's anchor tenant, Dunnes Stores, vacated the premises in 2016, with the centre struggling to secure new tenants since.

A number of other units within the shopping centre are now being advertised as to let within the 'North Gate Quarter', a rebranding of the shopping centre.

The shopping centre is still under the control of developer BMOR, the London-based firm with Irish directors who have Cork family roots.

They also acquired the former Munster Furniture Centre, which was ravaged by fire in 2008. 

They subsequently invested €40m into a 285-bed student accommodation building, which opened in 2023.

Williams said the "wonderful" new owners are "trying to breathe life back into the city centre", and described his rink as "a pivotal part of that".

At the southern end of North Main St, Cork City Council issued a request for tenders to regenerate three vacant buildings at 62-65 North Main St, which suffered a partial collapse in 2019. 

It described the ideal proposal for the buildings in its ownership as being for "high-quality urban design" with the intention of disposing of the land to the successful developer.