Forestside Shopping Centre is a shopping mall located in the southern suburbs of Belfast. The first phase of the centre, the 39,000 sq ft Sainsbury's store, was opened in March 1997. The popularity of the centre has exceeded expectations with traffic congestion a major problem in peak trading seasons and the Sainsbury's store consistently one of the best performing of the group. Sainsbury's was obliged to pay for extensive roadworks on the A24/A55 junction as a condition of the planning permission

History

Forestside was developed by J Sainsbury plc as the site of its second Northern Ireland store. The site was previously occupied by, and known as, Supermac - a local supermarket. The Sainsbury's store was built on the northern part of the roughly triangular site which was unoccupied as part of the Supermac complex. As the first stage opened work continued on the final stage of the shopping mall, 31 small units and two other large stores occupied by Marks & Spencer and Dunnes Stores. The total floor space of the centre is 250,000 sq ft (23,300 sq m) the south eastern part of the which stands on the site of the Supermac supermarket. The architects of the mall took advantage of the large east-west gradient of the site to build extensive underground car parking and service access.

Sainsbury's opened a petrol filling station at the same time as the supermarket, on the site of the Drunkeen Hotel. The Drukeen Hotel had been demolished after four bombings by the Provisional IRA.

Sainsbury's sold Forestside to the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) for approximately £50m in late 1998. USS sold the centre in mid-2001 for £90m to an Irish investment consortium.

On March 26 2005 the centre's Next outlet was targetted with an incendiary device which ignited after it had closed. Another device was defused in the centre's Dunnes Stores on Monday March 28. The attacks; like the campaign which destroyed a B&Q store at Sprucefield , Co. Antrim, are being blamed on dissident republicans.

External links

• BBC News: Device ignites in shopping centre