DURING THE BOOM years, Cherrywood in south Dublin was hailed as a prime location for first-time buyers.
A new suburb not too far from the city centre and Dundrum, it was hailed as a perfect location for commuters to set up home.
Located near the N11 and the M50, and with big employers in the area such as Dell, it attracted a lot of people looking to get on the property ladder.
The Luas Green line services the area too, and where there is transport infrastructure, people assumed other infrastructure would follow.
Stand still in development
As the slow-down in the economy set in, however, development in the area halted and large land parcels were left idle.
In July 2014, Cherrywood was placed into receivership by creditors NAMA, Danske Bank and Lloyds Banking Group.
New town centre
Hines, the US-based global property developers snapped up the 400-acre Cherrywood site and this week it unveiled their plans for a new town centre and business park.
The group, which acquired the site in November 2014, said the new development plans to be a retail-led town centre which will employ over 1,000 people.
Almost 3,800 new houses and apartments are to be built to house an expected local population on the Hines site alone in excess of 10,000 people.
There will also be three significant new parks, two of which will be roughly the size of St Stephen’s Green and Merrion Square.
These will include four full size multi-code paying pitches and a tennis club.
The existing Cherrywood Business Park is also going to be upgraded and will triple in size to deliver modern office and business space for up to 15,000 workers.
The developers said that new Cherrywood town proposal plans to have a fully pedestrianised town centre plaza at the level of the existing Luas line running through the lands – taking its cues from the High Line pedestrian district in New York City.
The plan is to have the Cherrywood Luas stop at street level and in the heart of the new town centre, just steps away from a new civic plaza where there will be a variety of retailers including shops, boutiques, cinemas and other leisure and entertainment outlets, as well as restaurants, bars and hotels.
What about all the traffic this will bring?
The developers said that much of the parking and road access will run under the town centre “allowing for a safer, quieter and more accessible town centre for local residents and workers”.
Senior Managing Director at Hines, Brian Moran said:
“It will be a landmark development integrating new homes, retail, work and leisure facilities within an urban design framework never previously seen in Dublin or in Ireland.”
The overall project is anticipating a new residential population of about 20,000 people living in Cherrywood (including other adjacent lands) at full completion and the business park expansion will see the current workforce of 3,500 swell to well in excess of 15,000.
Hines said it is working in collaboration with Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and hopes that before the end of this year the construction of the the roads infrastructure and the three major new parks will commence.
If you would like to view the new town plans, the Cherrywood Public Open Days will run from Tuesday 26 May to Thursday 28 May from 8.00am to 8.00pm each day at Block D, Cherrywood Business Park in Dublin 18.
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