Northside Shopping Centre

Green Property Ltd, in a joint venture with Dublin Corporation, opened Northside Shopping Centre on October 1, 1970, in Coolock on Dublin’s northside, becoming one of Ireland’s earliest purpose-built shopping centres, following only Stillorgan (1966). Architect Sam Stephenson of Stephenson Gibney & Associates designed the original open-air, pedestrian-focused layout, first publicly unveiled in May 1967 with an estimated construction cost of £1 million.

The centre’s defining feature, a rooftop swimming pool holding nearly 300,000 litres of water, made it the only shopping centre in Ireland with its own pool, serving both public swimmers and local schools for decades before its eventual indefinite closure. The open-air design was fully enclosed with a roof by 1988, and further renovations followed in the 1980s under Gilroy MacMahon and in 2008 under Murray O’Laoire Architects, progressively obscuring Stephenson’s original modernist concept, though some of the original concrete structure remains visible internally.

At roughly 17,000 sqm, the centre carries more than 60 shops, restaurants and services, anchored by Tesco and Dunnes Stores, and provides more than 700 parking spaces. The property employs more than 750 local residents and has welcomed more than 40 million visitors since 2000, hosting annual community events including an appearance by Santa each Christmas.

Ownership passed through Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency before a 2019 sale to Patron Capital, and shortly after to German investor AM Alpha for roughly €50 million, the centre’s current owner. A €5 million refurbishment was announced in 2013 to modernize the property’s entrances and interior layout.

That half-century arc, from a 1967-conceived, pool-topped open-air modernist landmark to a fully enclosed, German-institutionally-owned neighborhood centre, reflects how thoroughly Ireland’s earliest shopping centres have had to physically and financially transform to remain viable across five decades of changing retail formats and ownership structures.