Councillors demand to know who purchased €100m Kilkenny shopping centre
South Kilkenny councillors have issued a renewed appeal to NAMA to reveal the identity of the purchaser of the €100million Ferrybank Shopping Centre.
At last month's meeting of Piltown Municipal District Council, Cllr Ger Frisby asked Kilkenny County Council Senior Planner Denis Malone if any update had been issued in relation to the centre.
He was informed that NAMA did respond to the Council's query confirming purchase however they still have not yet confirmed the identity of the purchaser.
"This is a huge piece of infrastructure and we need to know as councillors what is going on, we need answers and we need to be at the centre of it," Cllr Frisby said.
"If they're not getting back to us we'll need to get the County Manager to look into it," he added.
Cllr Frisby's comments are the latest in an ongoing saga as local elected representatives seek answers from NAMA as to the purchaser.
Speculation has mounted intensely over the last few months when it became clear that remedial, access and improvement works are being undertaken at the centre.
For over a decade, the site has been the centre of a legal dispute between Dunnes Stores, who were originally signed on as the anchor tenant, and Deerland Construction Ltd, a company that transferred the loans for the building to NAMA.
The massive 30,000m2 outlet has remained almost entirely vacant for the entirety of that dispute, with only Ferrybank Library and Kilkenny County Council's municipal offices utilizing any of the space.