Donacarney Village Square advances to next chapter

Construction work has started on the second phase of Donacarney Village Square, which will include apartments, a restaurant and retail units.

While the original plans had provided for office space, lack of demand in the current environment for office accommodation prompted developer Ronan O'Reilly of Newkey Homes to amend the development, replacing the office space with 18 apartments.

The second phase will also include a Farm to Fork restaurant, a hair/beauty salon, barbers and a pharmacy.

The first phase of Donacarney Village Square is completed and includes a Spar store of 5,000sqm with a medical centre above it on the first floor, 18 apartments and a retail unit.

The shell and core of the medical centre is completed and the building is now awaiting fit out and is expected to open in August. A lease has been agreed with Good People Medical. A Macari takeaway also opened in recent weeks as part of the first phase of the development.

All the apartments- a mix of two-bedroom apartments and three bedroom duplex units- in the first phase have been sold. Some were private sales and the remainder were sold to Meath County Council.

Donacarney Village Square aims to provide a focal point to Donacarney village and provide services for the local community.

Originally it was a greenfield site with an old cottage and the second phase will include a cottage style retail unit in keeping with the original house. This unit will be occupied by a pharmacy.

It is anticipated that the second phase will be completed by the end of the year.

Ronan O'Reilly, who is developing the site, is a native of Gibbstown and a son of Phil O'Reilly of Shannon Homes. After working abroad in Dubai and the Caribbean with the Mace Group, he returned to Ireland about 10 years ago and took on his first project, developing two houses at Colpe, Drogheda.

Since then his company has worked on projects in St Werburghs in Swords, Milteoig in Trim, and Auburn Avenue (Drogheda)and Donacarney.

With the experience of building Donacarney Village Square, under his belt, Ronan was keen to take on a similar project and has also purchased the commercial site in the Cluain Adain development on the Clonmagadden Road in Navan from Glenveagh which is building around 460 homes there.

Newkey Homes' plans for the Cluain Adain commerical site include a 10,000 square feet single story supermarket which will be occupied by a Tesco Express, along with a separate medical centre building with two GP surgeries on first floor, and a pharmacy and salon unit on the ground floor.