History in shop front

SHOP fronts don’t come much more historic, or reborn, as at Limerick city’s Grand Central, on pedestrianised street Bedford Row off O’Connell Street.

The contemporary styled 15,000 sq ft mixed use development, for sale now as an investment for €650,000, includes the classical limestone facade of a 19th century Methodist church (designed by James Paine) within its newly-glazed atrium.

And, it’s not the first time the stone facade has been embraced within a development: it also managed to stand within the city’s 1950s built cinema Grand Central, retained 15’ feet behind the cinema’s front.

The Grand, at one stage one of a dozen Limerick cinemas, most recently hosted the Belltable’s cinema nights, but was demolished in 2007 to make way for a significant redevelopment, part of a multi-million euro makeover of Bedford Row “which now more than competes with Cruises Street as the main pedestrianised retail thoroughfare in Limerick,” says agent JC Gubbins of Murhpy Gubbins.

He is selling the redeveloped complex, with one retail tenant in situ, Edinburgh Woollen Mills, on the ground floor, paying a rent based on percentage of turnover, and the five-storey building runs to 15,800 sq ft, mostly in shell and core state (over basement) ready for fit-out.

It will provide retail space at first, ground and basement levels, with overhead offices and lift access.

Adjacent retailers to this scheme include Pamela Scott, Laura Ashley, Schuh, while Limerick Travel is next door, and Dunnes Stores and Brown Thomas are nearby, said Mr Gubbins.

Details: Murphy Gubbins, 061-590000