Blanchardstown
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Blanchardstown (Baile Bhlainséir in Irish) is a suburb of Dublin City, Ireland. Originally a town in its own right, it is now a large township in Fingal; and serves as a regional administrative centre for the county along with Swords. The suburb is the location of Institute of Technology, Blanchardstown. The area covers most of the An Post postal district "Dublin 15", and is locally referred to as being in that area.
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Sports Campus Ireland
It was envisaged that an area of Blanchardstown called Abbotstown was to be set aside to create Sports Campus Ireland - a new centre of sporting excellence. The Campus was to have an Academy of Sports Science, over a dozen training fields, a 50m aquatics centre, a 65,000 seater stadium, a sports village for accommodation and several other facilities.
Due to absurd cost estimates, the plans have been redrawn to exclude the stadium and to scale back the size of the remaining facilities.
To date only the aquatics centre has been completed. It is known as the National Aquatic Centre (NAC) - ironically being the second aquatics centre in the country to open, the NAC was preceded by a similar centre called the Arena centre in Limerick.
Blanchardstown Shopping Centre
The Blanchardstown Shopping Centre was Ireland's second major shopping centre at its completion (it followed The Square in Tallaght) and was the country's largest shopping centre until Dundrum Town Centre opened. It is owned by Green Property Limited, and located near the junction of the M50 motorway and N3 road.
The original anchor tenants in the centre were Dunnes Stores and Roches Stores. An extension added Pennys (Primark), and a second extension, known as the Red Mall, added Marks and Spencer. A number of smaller retail units, including Dixons, HMV, Virgin Megastores, French Connection, Topshop, and others are also present. A multiplex cinema (owned by United Cinemas International) and a number of restaurants (including McDonald's, Burger King, Eddie Rocket's, and Pizza Hut are also present.
The centre environs feature a 24 hour leisure centre (bowling alleys, arcades and quazar), a library, a gym, a pub/nightclub, office blocks and several larger outlying retail units (including PC World and Curry's).
See also
External link
- Blanchardstown Shopping Centre (http://www.blanchardstowncentre.ie/)
- Campus and Stadium Ireland Development Ltd (http://www.csid.ie)
- Institute of Technology Blanchardstown (http://www.itb.ie/)
- Community Website (http://welcome.to/blanchardstown)