Tinnelly Construction have successfully delivered more than 100 Lidl stores in Ireland and the UK over the last 18 years, including the landmark new €6 million store in Bagenalstown, County Carlow, which has been shortlisted in the Retail Project of the Year category at the 2022 Irish Construction Industry Awards. We touched base with director Gerard Tinnelly to find out more.
During the summer of 2021, Lidl opened its stunning new €6m premises on the Royal Oak Road in Bagenalstown, which had the distinction of being Ireland’s first A1 energy rated retail store.
An industry leader in sustainability, this 1,017sqm store boasts a spacious interior layout, high ceilings and wide aisles as well as an onsite café. With solar panels installed, the cutting–edge store uses only renewable electricity and provides free EV charging points to customers.
Designed by SDS (Structural Design Solutions) Ltd., Lidl Bagenalstown has been shortlisted for the prestigious Retail Project of the Year award at this year’s ICI Awards, much to the delight of Gerard Tinnelly, director of Tinnelly Construction, who were main contractors on the delivery of the project.
“It was a great project to work on and SDS have to be commended for their input, as do Lidl themselves,” he notes. “This was a challenging project for us as it was carried out during the pandemic. Normally, it would take us six-seven months to complete a Lidl store but we had to come off site for 13 weeks during the third lockdown, which pushed the programme back. We picked up again very quickly when construction was allowed to resume.”
The Tinnelly Construction team arrived on site on August 4th, 2020 and the new store was finished on June 24th, 2021. It was a complete new build on a greenfield site and the associated civil works included road realignment and refurbishment works on a neighbour’s entrance and garden.
“We constructed a nice boundary wall between the two buildings and it had to be done in the same natural local black stone that is used on the façade of the store itself. It worked out well and all parties were pleased with the final result.”
Tinnelly Construction has developed a strong working relationship with Lidl down through the decades. “We’ve worked with Lidl for 18 years now and within that time we’ve done over 100 projects between Ireland and the UK, including new builds, refurbishments, store extensions and car park extensions,” Gerard confirms. “The sites can be tricky and a lot of civil engineering expertise is generally invested into them.
“Lidl have been very good to us over the years and are an excellent client to work with. We’ve built up a good working relationship with them and find them to be firm but fair. They have a good team of lads around them and they are making a significant contribution to the Irish economy. They invest a lot into construction and their buildings are sustainable with very high energy ratings.
“They are constantly upgrading, too, and we are currently knocking down and rebuilding many of the original stores from 18 years ago. These were built at a cost of round €1m – €1.3 million back then but they are spending around €4m on average on a modern, spacious, energy-efficient store, while this one in Bagenalstown cost €6m including the café.”
The site on the Royal Oak Road was a hive of activity during construction. “We would have had up to 25 directly-employed on site at any given time, rising up to 70 in total including subcontractors. That’s the sort of manpower you need on these programmes, which are time sensitive and you have to make sure you have the right crew on site.”
While Tinnelly Construction looked after all the civil works, carpentry, paving, kerbing and drainage in-house, Gerard is keen to stress that a project such as this could not be completed to such a high standard within a limited window without the vital input of an exceptional team of subcontractors – all of whom made invaluable contributions to the magnificent success story that is Lidl Bagenalstown.
The County Down based contractor adds that Lidl stores are a pleasure to build and really nice projects to work on: “At any one time, we could have five to six Lidl stores at various stages of construction. During very busy times, that went up to eleven, which obviously brings a lot of pressure. On average, we do around eight per year.
“Within reason, the internal envelop is always very similar but there are different sizes of stores. The one in Carlow was 2,268 sq m in total [gross floor area], but there are also smaller and bigger Lidl stores.”
From 1990 onwards, Tinnelly Construction have built up a solid reputation for excellence in the house building sector, specialising in high-quality, bespoke, turnkey homes, covering everything from the foundation to the interior finish. Over the years, the company has developed expertise right across the construction industry, amassing a vast portfolio of projects ranging from new-build housing, large and small extensions to industrial and commercial works, specialising in the creation of retail environments and with a strong in-house civils offering.
“To complement the Lidl work, we currently take on one-off private new build homes as well as some apartments and a lot of remedial work on old listed buildings,” says Gerard. “We’re also busy doing quite a bit of civil engineering works for local authorities in Dublin and various councils throughout the UK.”
Gerard Tinnelly is a third-generation builder who has worked in construction all his working life. His late father Gerard Snr. and his uncle ran Tinnelly Demolition, while prior to that his grandfather, who was a block maker, established John Tinnelly & Sons in the mid-1950s.
“I left school when I was young and started working as a carpenter,” he concludes. “I did internal and external joinery and roofing and then started doing one-off extensions and houses. As a building contractor, that’s what I started out doing and – even though we’re busy in retail construction – I still don’t shy away from them because we do a very high-quality home and I have a good crew of men around me, who have the skills and experience to deliver beautiful homes.”
Tinnelly Construction Ltd.,
10 Newtown Road,
Rostrevor,
County Down.
Tel: 028 4173 9446
Email: [email protected]
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, March 2023, Vol 9 No 3
