Castlebawn Shopping Centre
Castlebawn is a proposed £250 million, 75 acre, shopping centre and retail park in Newtownards, County Down, Northern Ireland. It is a joint venture between Eastwood Property and R&A Group. The ambitious proposals, which promise to create up to 2,000 jobs, will extend the town centre and edge of centre southwards in a three-stage development, which is expected to completed by 2012. The development includes a Retail Park with 12 retail warehousing units, as a well as a shopping centre. It also includes a bypass from Portaferry Road to Comber Road, which will link to the roundabout at the beginning of the main road to Belfast. This will allow traffic to bypass Newtownards town centre and will help ease traffic problems in the area.
The scheme is being developed as part of the Newtownards Town Centre regeneration scheme and will feature:
- a 300,000 sq ft Shopping Centre which will be physically integrated with the town centre,
- 342,000 sq ft of retailing,
- a 116,000 sq ft Business/Office Park,
- 29,000 sq ft of Leisure units,
- a petrol filling station and two car showrooms, and
- an 80,000 sq ft Tesco store with associated retail units.
Commencement
In April 2008 the go-ahead was given for the building of an £8m, two-mile road to ease traffic congestion in Newtownards, after which construction of the shopping centre would start. The developer, Castlebawn Ltd, is contributing almost £5m towards the cost of the road scheme, which is expected to be complete in 12 months.