An 'entertainment village' is set to consolidate Dundonald's growing reputation as a regional hub for family friendly entertainment.

A major infrastructure development, Eastpoint, alongside the local Ice Bowl, ten pin bowling facilities and Pirates' Adventure Golf Centre, has already seen the wider Dundonald area well established as a leisure and entertainment attraction.

Now, the £18m Eastpoint entertainment village has also attracted an eight-screen Omniplex cinema as anchor tenant, offering space for restaurants and retail units, most of which have already been leased to local brands including Mookie World, Wolfes, Blue Chicago Grill and Gaze Asian Restaurant.

The 85,000 sq ft development at Eastpoint provides free parking spaces for approximately 670 cars, and its location just off the Old Dundonald Road Roundabout means that it benefits from excellent transport links into the city centre.

Eastpoint complements ongoing, multi-agency initiatives to regenerate the wider area.

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Construction work by the Hanwood Trust Company Ltd has been recently completed with the second phase of a regeneration project to construct business units for micro businesses and social enterprises just down the road from the village.

Phase one, completed in 2005, provided a community resource centre and the recently completed phase three has provided more facilities, including a synthetic sports pitch and community gymnasium.

Castlereagh Borough Council estimates that Dundonald Ice Bowl currently receives 500,000 visitors every year, making the venue one of Northern Ireland’s best loved visitor attractions.

According to the NITB Visitor Attractions Survey in 2008, only the iconic Giant's Causeway attracts more visitors every year.

Mark Carron of joint letting agents, Osborne King, feels that the Turkington Holdings Eastpoint development is well placed to service the demand for leisure and entertainment services in the greater Belfast area.

"Given that Eastpoint is five miles from the city centre and three miles from George Best Belfast City Airport, access to the location is great.

"There are 580,000 people in the wider Greater Belfast Metropolitan Area, and a core target market of 66,500 in the Castlereagh Borough Council," he said.

"We believe that there is an untapped demand in Belfast for Eastpoint, complementary to Dundonald's existing entertainment and leisure offering.

"We are looking at other uses for the scheme, such as pizza, steakhouse and other related leisure and retail businesses, all of which will sit well within Eastpoint.

"A further unit has recently been agreed to an Indian Restaurant and we have only a small number of vacant units available from 2,000 sq ft up to 7,156 sq ft," he revealed.

(BMcC)