10 June: In a deal estimated to be worth up to E14 million, Tesco Ireland has bought a 6.8-acre site at Oldtown on the Sallins Road in Naas for a new store.
And the company says it is 'confident' that it will be able to persuade Naas town councillors to give them the variation of the current zoning they need to allow them build a 57,000 sq ft new premises on the site.
The property is currently zoned 'Retail/Commercial' with a specific condition for 'leisure' use. It is understood to be where a cinema complex and other leisure ventures including a bowling alley were planned to be located by the owners, Lehmex International.
The move to have the leisure element removed from the zoning comes after a controversial attempt - with very strong backing from Kildare's manager Niall Bradley and a cohort of top planners and engineers - to give a site in the middle of nearby Millennium Park a material contravention that would allow it be used for a cinema complex.
That effort failed, but the promoters, IMC (Naas) Ltd, are appealing the decision to An Bord Pleanala. One of the country's leading cinema experts, Paddy Melia, is on record as saying that site is 'crazy'.
The Tesco project managers say they have fully purchased the Sallins Road site without any conditions related to their being able to achieve a variation of the zoning.
It seems unlikely that Tesco Ireland would sanction an unconditional purchase of such magnitude without having first received some level of 'comfort' from the relevant authorities that the variation could be achieved.
"We've done a great deal of research, and we firmly believe this is the best site for the purpose," the company's Development Support Manager Michael Sullivan told KNN. "We also believe that we can convince the councillors of this."
He declined to say how much had been paid for the Oldtown site, but professional valuers have suggested the value of the property to be worth anything between E10 million and E14 million.
"With a company like Tesco, the sky's the limit," one auctioneer told KNN. "And in these things, Naas is probably the most expensive town in the county."
In a presentation document to councillors, Tesco Ireland says the existing provision which specifically identifies the site for leisure purposes 'has become moribund' with the proposal to site the leisure facilities at an alternative location.
Customer access for the new store would be by the Sallins Road, while deliveries would take place on a link road from Millennium Park via Monread Road.
The company says the new store will have 371 car parking spaces compared to 137 in the existing store, which was opened in 1973.
It will also double the existing staff numbers, and provide an estimated E91,442 in rates compared to the current operation's E34,505.
In the last couple of years, Superquinn has been prevented from moving out of the town centre to a new location, and two separate applications for supermarket developments on the nearby Monread Road have been turned down.
Any variation of the existing Naas Town Development Plan will require the agreement of two-thirds of the councillors.
At a recent meeting between Tesco representatives and the councillors, one asked what would happen to the existing site. An answer that 'it could be a community centre' was greeted with a high degree of scepticism.
