Seven-storey student complex planned on Westside Shopping Centre carpark

From this week’s Galway City Tribune – The owner of Westside Shopping Centre has drawn up plans to building a seven-storey student accommodation complex – in the place of around 100 parking spaces.

The centre was bought by Ciaran McIntyre of Elkstone Real Estate in February 2020 and over the past two years has been working on plans to develop the 240-bed complex on part of the carpark adjacent to McDonalds.

The proposal – submitted last week to An Bord Pleanála under the Strategic Housing Development process – is for a one to seven-storey building with a café and take-away coffee hatch on the ground floor and a total of 32 ‘clusters’ overhead.

Each cluster will range from four to eight bedspaces and will have a communal living/ kitchen/dining room.

The existing carpark will be rearranged, and 94 spaces will be removed, leaving 238 spaces. There will be no carparking for tenants of the student housing, and 212 bicycle spaces will be provided.

The developers plan to use the accommodation for short-term lets during student holidays.

Under the legislation, applications are decided within a 16-week time period (August 2 is the decision due date for the Westside application), and members of the public now have until May 17 to make a submission directly to the Board on the plans.

The shopping centre went on the market in 2018 with a price tag of of €9.6 million, and was sold in February 2020 for an undisclosed sum.

This is a shortened preview version of this article. To read the rest of the story, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.