Castlebawn is a proposed £250 million, 75-acre (300,000 m2), 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 (28,000 m2) Shopping Centre which will be physically integrated with the town centre,
- 342,000 sq ft (31,800 m2) of retailing,
- a 116,000 sq ft (10,800 m2) Business/Office Park,
- 29,000 sq ft (2,700 m2) of Leisure units,
- a petrol filling station and two car showrooms, and
- an 80,000 sq ft (7,400 m2) Tesco store with associated retail units.
Famous quotes containing the words shopping and/or centre:
“Shopping seemed to take an entirely too important place in women’s lives. You never saw men milling around in men’s departments. They made quick work of it. I used to wonder if shopping was a form of escape for women who had no worthwhile interests.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“Old politicians, like old actors, revive in the limelight. The vacancy which afflicts them in private momentarily lifts when, once more, they feel the eyes of an audience upon them. Their old passion for holding the centre of the stage guides their uncertain footsteps to where the footlights shine, and summons up a wintry smile when the curtain rises.”
—Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990)