Major plans lodged for old Centrepoint site

PLANS for more than 200 housing units, shops, offices and other services on the old Centrepoint site in Portlaoise have been lodged with Laois Co Council.

The ambitious project, which includes a restaurant and a children’s playground, would transform the huge 4.96 hectare site, which has repeatedly been described as an eyesore by residents and councillors.

The plans submitted on 7 January follow a year of pre-planning discussions between the council and the owners regarding the Maryborough site, which has been vacant for nearly 20 years. If planning permission is granted, construction must be completed within five years.

The plans lodged by Centrepoint Partners are for 217 residential units, made up of 141 apartments and 74 houses, as well as a creche, restaurant, shops and office space.

The proposed development would include mixed use three-storey commercial buildings to accommodate a creche, ground floor retail units, a restaurant and office space on the site, which was once a thriving shopping centre but closed in 2008.

The plans include a new road layout with two traffic entrances off Harpur’s Lane and the Mountrath Road, with a dedicated pedestrian and cycle link and a raised platform junction at the vehicular entrance onto Harpur’s Lane and a ‘courtesy-type’ pedestrian crossing further to the west on Harpur’s Lane.

The planning application also includes ‘an additional service exit onto Mountrath Road adjacent to the proposed mixed use commercial building, associated footpaths, traffic calming, carparking, street lighting, paving, landscaping with integrated children’s playground, drainage, bin storage and bicycle storage throughout the development, free-standing ESB substations; a connection to the existing public services and all associated ancillary site development works’.

As the old shopping complex included a filling station, the project would require demolition of three former fuel islands, one old fuel offloading area, removal of underground fuel tanks and associated underground pipework, together with the foundations of the former shopping centre.

The plans state: ‘The 217 homes will consist of 74 houses, 141 apartments including duplexes and two assisted living units. The properties will be made up of nine semi-detached two-storey four-bed townhouses; 37 semi-detached and terraced two- and three-storey three-bed townhouses; 18 semi-detached and terraced two-storey two-bed townhouses; 10 detached and semi-detached two-bed single-storey lifetime homes; two detached single-storey five-bed assisted living units with in-house carer accommodation. The apartments will consist of 29 one-bed, 61 two-bed, and 51 three- bed own door apartments and duplex apartments in three- and four-storey blocks’.

Two planned mixed use three-storey commercial buildings will include 'a 416.6sq.m creche over two floors to accommodate 61 children and support staff, with a dedicated playground, with separate 359.8sq.m office space and ancillary accommodation to first and second floors, with separate entrance at ground level and a separate 2,208.9sq.m three-storey commercial building with public plaza facing onto the Mountrath road, consisting of 511.5sq.m of ground floor retail space and a 311.5sq.m restaurant'.

Councillors were told in December 2024 that the owners were ‘progressing plans for a large residential development’ and were involved in pre-planning discussions with the council’s planning department.

A council meeting on 28 July was told that plans for a large housing development on the old Centrepoint site must be lodged within six months, if the owners were to avoid further steep financial penalties.

At the time, council director of services Angela McEvoy said that part of the Centrepoint site is on the derelict sites register and part on the vacant sites register. She said there was a six-month deadline for a planning application to be submitted.

The site has been listed as an ‘opportunity site’ in the Laois County Development Plan (CDP) since 2016, as well as the Portlaoise Local Area Plan and is zoned for mixed use.

It is described in the CDP as ‘a brownfield retail site located at Mountrath Road with access also from Harpur’s Lane, an extensive surface car park, a prime location for redevelopment, not located within an architectural conservation area, with no protected structures within the site’.

The CDP adds: ‘Care should be taken that this building addresses the extensive street frontage available and be designed to an exceptional standard. New buildings should be permanent, timeless and contemporary structures.’ 

Once a thriving retail hub, the shopping centre had outlets that included Shaws, Gings, a furniture shop, a supermarket, a hairdresser and a restaurant, as well as a service station. After it closed, the premises became increasingly derelict and was notorious for anti-social behaviour, culminating in a major blaze in April 2021.

At that stage, Laois Co Council ordered Kerry-based owners Pimcar Ltd to secure the property and make it safe. The buildings were in such dangerous condition that they had to be demolished and the site was fully cleared.

The site is incurring annual levies on Laois Co Council's derelict sites register, currently set at 7% of the market value of the land. It is also liable for Residential Zoned Land Tax, which is designed to tackle landowners ‘sitting on’ housing development lands.