INDIAN-born investor Suneil Sharma, who put the ill-fated Opera Centre package together, has now diverted his attention to the abandoned Parkway Valley Shopping centre, having completed negotiations with National Irish Bank to purchase the site. It has also emerged that Mr Sharma parted with €30 million in acquiring the adjoining retail park, a major success since it opened about eight years ago.
According to an Irish Times report, NIB, owned by Danske, the Danish banking group, had exposure of €100 million on the 15-acre site.
The retail park, home to TK Maxx, Currys, Homebase and PC World, and others, produces annual income of around €3million.
Shortly after he assembled the site for the Opera Centre, he sold on his interests to a Dublin-based consortium, headed by developer Gerry O’Reilly.
In fact, the Belfast-based Mr Sharma has developed a ‘love’ affair with Limerick in that the Childers Road Retail Park, where the site was purchased from City Council, was also his brainchild.
He later sold to a Dublin based property group.
The Parkway Valley project was abandoned in 2008 when the Zoe Group, owned by developer Liam Carroll, went into liquidation.
According to reports, Mr Sharma will control 100 per cent of the equity, with the development expected to cost around €60m to complete.
A few hurdles will have to be overcome before work can proceed on the Dublin Road site; the County Council, for example, will have to grant an extension of the planning permission as the original consent has run out.
Also, city centre traders are unlikely to take too kindly to any development there.
Patrick Street businessman Tony Connolly, recently told the Limerick Post that full concentration should be on developing the Opera Centre rather than the Parkway Valley, helping to bring life back into the city centre.
It is suggested that the owners of the Crescent SC, which has one of the highest footfalls in the country, are monitoring developments at the Parkway Valley project with a view to a possible involvement.
They had lined up Marks & Spencer for the Crescent two years ago, as exclusively reported in the Limerick Post, and were disappointed when planning permission for an extension was refused.
The original plan for the Parkway Valley was for almost 40,000 sq m to accommodate 50 shop units, three anchor tenants and 1,650 parking spaces.
