Longford Town Centre- whats the deal?

MDFM

with the builders in there now? Drove by it last night and there's work going on..Is it opening or what's happening with it anyone know?

_Lady_

Haven't heard anything - I know there were hopes that it could be sold back to local groups but not aware of any transactions having taken place - it's still in NAMA by all accounts?

polkabunny

Any time I've been near the place it's looked as dead as usual. Such a shame really, there was so much potential there. But maybe something will happen with it!

garfieldsghost

MDFM wrote: »

with the builders in there now? Drove by it last night and there's work going on..Is it opening or what's happening with it anyone know?

Just scheduled remedial works, I think.

kerash

Maybe cos the Chinese are coming http://www.longfordleader.ie/news/business/chinese-investors-to-visit-longford-this-week-1-4507627 a great bunch a lads. :P

http://www.longfordleader.ie/news/business/shopping-centre-in-spotlight-again-as-asda-rules-out-longford-move-1-4507091

Published on Wednesday 21 November 2012 20:00

NAMA chiefs and the receiver charged with finding a buyer for Longford town’s vacant shopping centre are understood to be carrying out key maintenance works in a bid to uphold the building’s present condition.

According to Cllr Peggy Nolan, builders moved into the unsold precinct in recent days in a move which the Fine Gael representative has broadly welcomed.

“It’s (building) finished to a five star spec so the fact the receiver has gone in and is carrying out this work,” she said.

Confirmation surrounding Cllr Nolan’s claims were however uncorroborated at the time of going to press by FGS on Tuesday despite an attempt being made by the Leader some six days earlier.

Nonetheless, Cllr Nolan said she has been left in little doubt as to what the sudden change of tack might mean.

“Even better news would be if we could somehow get a brand name in there. Imagine what it would do for that end of the town. One thing is for sure, it would float a lot of boats,” she said.

Any hopes the current sitting mayor of Longford town had in terms of enticing British supermarket chain Asda to move in as the centre’s anchor tenant appear to have come unstuck.

“That won’t be happening now,” she said bluntly. “Both the director of services (Frank Sheridan) and County Manager (Tim Caffrey) had planned on going to Asda House in Leeds. We had even sent them a full spec of the building earlier this year with the permission of NAMA.”

Cllr Nolan said any lingering aspirations of brokering a deal with supermarket executives faded once it became clear what the retailer’s future business plans were.

“What they (Asda) want to do is start to open out of town headquarters which, as far as I am concerned, doesn’t fit in with our (Co Longford’s) development plan,” she said.

JimmyR

“What they (Asda) want to do is start to open out of town headquarters which, as far as I am concerned, doesn’t fit in with our (Co Longford’s) development plan,” she said.

I understand what she is saying but Longford is under serious pressure at the minute, it needs something that is going to create jobs and attract people from outside longford to the area. I understand that the ideal situation is that a major retailer would open in the new shopping centre or in the middle of the town and the rest of Longford would hopefully gain business because of this. But we have to be realistic, this shopping centre was a cart before the house job, it was built like a lot of housing estates in the county. Just build it and we'll fill it after, someone will want it. Well this isn't the case, we need to build whats needed when its needed.

If ASDA or Tesco, but I'm thinking particulary ASDA as they'd be a new business which would create new jobs and bring people from outside the county in, want to build on a site outside the town then we should be encouraging them. More local jobs means more spending power by employees and their familys in the area. More people travelling through the town or close to the town means other businesses will gain more business.

I don;t think ASDA or any other big business is going to have a more negative effect than what is currently happening. I for one am delighted to see the town councils gone, there were too many councillors mingling negatively in too many things in the town. I'd really love to see them actually try and do something positive and think outside the box. Longford was once one of the better trading towns in the midlands with people from Leitrim, Roscommon, Cavan and Westmeath coming to shop in the town, now its Longford people shopping in those counties.

Reduce rates, reduce or take away paid parking and create incentives for new business in the town.

road_high

http://www.thejournal.ie/longford-town-centre-omniplex-3-3869124-Feb2018/
The Omniplex next door has bought the premises. For a song really, just 1.2 million. Great to see this happen, bringing new life and business to this celtic tiger relic.

nice_guy80

I hope they knock it

road_high

nice_guy80 wrote: »

I hope they knock it

They're not going to knock it they're going to adapt into a new cinema/entertainment centre. I'd imagine this will still require consider works/reconfiguration.

sudzs

JimmyR, Why would Asda come to Longford?? Tesco has that market tied up

Angron

It'd be nice to see something finally happen with the place.