This article is from page 7 of the 2011-03-22 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 7 JPG
A NEW discount store in Shannon, which will employ 12 people, is expected to play a pivotal role in increasing business in the town centre by at least 10 per cent. That’s the prediction of the manager of SkyCourt shopping centre Pat Kelly, who said he is optimistic that Buy Lo will attract huge numbers of shoppers to the centre.
A number of businesses in SkyCourt have closed in recent months including fashion outlet Pink, Roxy Records, Cafe 2000 and Bank of Ireland. Nevertheless Mr Kelly remains optimistic about the future.
“We have 65 units open at the moment. There are 13 or 14 vacant. How many have they vacant in Ennis? 70. In the last two months alone we let a small grocery supermarket, Jen, which does ethnic foods. What I’m finding is that recently we are getting a lot of enquiries about people who are trying to start up businesses,” he said.
“It has been a difficult 12 months. Our footfall figures were only down eight per cent last year, but the spend of the customers wouldn’t be the same,” said Mr Kelly.
“We are weathering the downturn reasonably well and the decision by Buy Lo to locate here gives us great confidence for the remainder of 2011 and beyond,” he said.
Mr Kelly said that the plan to attract anchor tenant Buy Lo – which will open in SkyCourt next week – had been on the cards for the past two years.
“We were working on it for the past two years. We had to go for planning which held it up for a few months and then negotiations and then we had to fit out the store,” said Mr Kelly.
“We’d be hoping with Buy Lo we would get back the figures we had in 2006/2007; that’s about 12 or 13 per cent,” he said.
Buy Lo will occupy 65 per cent of the unit previously held by Tesco. Additional car parking has been created to the back of the premises. The entire unit has been gutted and subdivided. Repairs have been carried out to the roof, while new flooring has been put in place.
“Their [Buy Lo] prices are very reasonable. They are the Irish version of Lidl and Aldi. I’d be very confident that it will bring a lot of people from Ennis and further afield,” said Mr Kelly. “I feel that Buy Lo is going to be a great bonus for us. In the times we are in, it is ideal because it is discount products and that’s what people want,” he said.