By Lesley Walsh
THE DAYS of dereliction on Bangor’s lower Main Street could be consigned to the past with the redevelopment of the once flourishing Flagship Centre heralding the latest major boost to the city centre landscape.
Plans for a new look, glass-encased Marina Village will aim to bring back the appeal that Bangor, in its heyday, once presented for holiday makers and daytrippers from across the island and Great Britain.
Details were unveiled at Bangor Court House last Thursday, as part of a 12-week consultation process. Local people were asked to fill out comment cards to bring their feedback straight into the hands of the company steering the plans, the Manchester-based investment firm, the Northhold Group.
The proposed development promises a ‘dynamic hub’ entailing a mixed bag of family entertainment and indoor sporting facilities, retail and food and beverage units, while office space will comprise business start-up and incubator facilities. It even aims to incorporate healthcare provision and creche, as well as services like veterinarian provision.
The panels displayed at the Court House launch illustrated the development’s blueprints which reveal ‘the subdivision and refurbishment of the unit will enable a flexible, mixed use offering, consistent with city centre policy objectives’.
Family entertainment is expected to include arcades, 10-pin bowling, crazy golf, sports simulators, a gym and padel ball courts, while the plans, if given the green light, will support ‘footfall generation, daytime and evening economy activity’ as well as improving the overall wealth of the city.
With the proposals not requiring any extension to the existing building, work will be limited to the ‘international reconfiguration, modernisation and external enhancements where necessary to provide active frontages and an attractive streetscape’.
Planning permission already exists to return the site’s car park to operation, supporting accessibility to the town centre as regeneration progresses.
Marina Village aims to deliver economic recovery by turning vacant space into ‘active, productive use’, enhancing the city’s daytime and nighttime activity through its diverse offering, while also strengthening the ‘long-term sustainability of the Flagship as a fundamental element’ of the city.
First opened in 1993 by property tycoon Michael Herbert, with anchor tenants Dunnes Stores and the Co-op supermarket, its development served as an effort to entice shoppers back into Bangor, after the impact of the Bloomfield Centre, opened the previous year, had begun to bite.
With a central foodcourt, popular shops over two floors and a 430-space car across a 157,000sq ft site, the centre did make an impact on attracting footfall into the town and was buzzing for a time, attracting considerable footfall in the face of the Bloomfield competition.
But when the global financial crisis of 2008 chipped away at the economic landscape, the writing on the wall began to be discernible for the retail industry.
Subsequent seismic blows to the wider retail saw the depletion of household names from high streets up and down the country and led to the vacation of much-loved shops in the Flagship Centre.
Between 2017 and 2018, big names like Dunnes, Argos and Poundland closed their branches in the centre, with the doors to the centre finally closing in January 2019.
Any hopes of prospective buyers in the immediate aftermath were scuppered by the Covid pandemic of 2020. Subsequent valiant efforts by local firm, Brooklands Property, led by Bangor man Ricky McClarnon, who bought it in 2021 in a multi-million pound deal, fell short in the spring of 2024, when the receivers were called in.
The move dashed his dreams of returning the site to its once ’vibrant part of the town centre’ as he had said when he took control of it.
