The U Store It facility in Liffey Valley, where planning permission has been granted for a new private health clinic operated by Excape Healthcare
Permission granted for new health clinic at Liffey Valley
PERMISSION has been granted for the change of use of a ‘café’ unit in Liffey Valley Shopping Centre for the development of a space for a personal training business.
The applicant, Excape Healthcare Ltd, currently has six locations across Dublin and Kildare and specialises in helping people “from their late thirties to eighties get strong and healthy.”
The applicant intends to open a small, private healthcare clinic in the commercial unit to provide “a specialised service for older clientele where they can create preventative health screening services and normalise it to the general population market.”
The business will move into the proposed café unit at the U Store It’s Facility in Liffey Valley, which was constructed as part of the much larger self-storage facility, completed in early 2025.
The unit has been marketed for potential café/restaurant use, but to date, there has been an absence of interest as outlined by U Store It and their agents, CBRE, in the Application Cover Letter.
The unit was deemed unsuitable for café use by CBRE due to the lack of dedicated customer parking and no meaningful pedestrian footfall. Instead, the unit would succeed with a destination-style occupier: “a business whose customers travel to it deliberately rather than discover it in passing, such as trade counters, showroom style retailers, specialist suppliers or fitness or studio uses.”
The Cover Letter further states that it has proven “impossible to attract a suitable tenant to operate the unit as a café/restaurant” despite the best effort of the owner.
“The proposed use by Excape does offer the possibility of a suitable and innovative use which would allow the unit to be occupied but also allows the applicant to provide a service which would hugely benefit the general community and help to improve its general health, which can only be a positive contribution.
‘It would bring life and activity to the area in a sustainable manner.”
‘The applicant intends to open a small, private healthcare clinic in the commercial unit to provide “a specialised service for older clientele where they can create preventative health screening services and normalise it to the general population market.”
In terms of Zoning, the site is currently zoned as MRC, “to protect, improve and provide for the future development of a Major Retail Centre.”
The proposed health and fitness centre falls under this category as a Healthcare Unit is Open to Consideration under this Zoning, falling into this category as stated in Appendix 6: Defines of Use-Classes.
SDCC requested further information on the location of on-site car parking spaces for the proposed use, as the submitted Site Layout plan notes five car parking spaces.
As per the parent permission, surface and basement car and bicycle parking was permitted and constructed to serve the development in totality, including the storage facility and associated café unit.
The applicant fulfilled this request on September 18, providing a detailed graphic of car parking spaces.
The subject site is located near the junction of Fonthill Road and the main entrance to the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre.
The site is adjacent to a 5-storey office block (Block C), which serves various businesses, to the east, and a childcare facility to the west. The surrounding area consists of mainly commercial, retail and industrial uses.
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme
