{"id":249259,"date":"2026-01-17T08:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T08:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/249259\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T08:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T08:30:08","slug":"some-stillorgan-shopping-centre-retailers-holding-back-rent-due-to-massive-impact-of-parking-fees-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/249259\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Stillorgan shopping centre retailers holding back rent due to \u2018massive impact\u2019 of parking fees \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some businesses operating in the Stillorgan<\/a> Village shopping centre are withholding rent from its US owners in light of a drop in business they say has been caused by the introduction of car-parking fees in November<\/a>. <\/p>\n

At least five businesses in the shopping centre are currently withholding rent, The Irish Times has learned, with a delegation of businesses meeting the owners of the shopping centre in recent days to vent their frustrations.<\/p>\n

The car parks, which are owned along with the shopping centre by US investment giant Kennedy Wilson<\/a>, are operated by private parking company Euro Car Parks Ireland.<\/p>\n

A charge of \u20ac1.20 an hour was applied just weeks before Christmas. <\/p>\n

Bryan Vincent, the owner of the O\u2019Brien\u2019s Caf\u00e9 franchise, said his business was one of a number withholding rent. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe won\u2019t pay rent if it means we can\u2019t pay wages,\u201d he said, noting there had been no consultation with businesses in the shopping centre prior to the commencement of the parking charges.<\/p>\n

Grocery retailer Tesco<\/a> said it was \u201cdisappointed\u201d with the introduction of the charges.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the anchor tenant in the Stillorgan Shopping Centre, we were disappointed to see pay-parking introduced without consultation, and fully understand the frustration expressed by our customers about this change,\u201d the company said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Mr Vincent said his business has seen a 6 to 10 per cent drop in activity each week in 2026 so far, which has coincided with a 20 per cent increase in his overall operating costs. The conclusion, he said, was that businesses\u2019 margins are running out.<\/p>\n

\"AA car-parking charge of \u20ac1.20 an hour was applied just weeks before Christmas at Stillorgan Shopping Centre <\/p>\n

Yvonne Van Beck, the manager of Inco Boutique in the shopping centre, said their weekly business had been hit by as much as 20 per cent, a \u201cbig impact\u201d on the shop.<\/p>\n

She said customers were now rushing out of the centre due to the constraints of their parking periods.<\/p>\n

Ms Van Beck noted it would be reasonable for the car park to have a short period of free parking as part of the charging structure. <\/p>\n

Mr Vincent said he had been forced to reduce the total weekly staff hours by 50 as a result of the drop in business.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody minds paying for parking, when it is done right,\u201d he said, noting that the current charge structure does not allow for partial hours to be paid for.<\/p>\n

A customer who wants to park for 10 minutes must pay for a full hour, without there being a grace period, which was previously in place \u2013 allowing for two free hours of parking.<\/p>\n

The machines, according to another business owner, are proving difficult to operate for older shoppers and are \u201cunreliable\u201d. A number of the machines were out of order on Friday. <\/p>\n

Mr Vincent said customers who had previously used his cafe as a social space are finding themselves \u201crushed\u201d and \u201cunder pressure\u201d from the timing constraints of the parking charges.<\/p>\n

Sean Nyhan, the owner of Fenelon\u2019s Butchers, said businesses were looking to negotiate with the owners to come to a compromise with a period of free parking prior to charges kicking in.<\/p>\n

He has seen a 10 per cent cut in its footfall, with their older clientele the most affected. He said the charges as they are currently implemented were \u201cdriving people away\u201d and that \u201cevery shop in the shopping centre is affected\u201d.<\/p>\n

Kennedy Wilson was contacted for comment.<\/p>\n

The retailers were informed the charges had been introduced to combat abuse of the car parks, with customers of other businesses in the area, located outside the shopping centre, and residents of the new apartment buildings in the village being cited as factors.<\/p>\n

Parking fees of \u20ac1.20 per hour were introduced on November 19th. Clamping and vehicle removal are also in operation, with offenders set to face release fees of \u20ac120 and relocation charges of \u20ac150. <\/p>\n

Paloma Gislon, the store manager at Card Factory, said the centre had been \u201creally, really quiet\u201d since the introduction of parking fees.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of older people [would] always come in for a coffee, but all of those people, they are not coming here to browse any more. It has been really, really quiet \u2013 especially around Christmas,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been affecting us big time, Christmas was one of our worst in years.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some businesses operating in the Stillorgan Village shopping centre are withholding rent from its US owners in light…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,615,61,60,83768,125005,83767],"class_list":["post-249259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-dublin","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kennedy-wilson","tag-o-brien-s","tag-stillorgan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}