"We've put a lot of money into it and we're very, very pleased. And I think it was great to see them doing so well this year. But a final between Dublin and the west would have been brilliant."

As part of the sponsorship arrangement, Arnotts offers a performance bonus to Dublin if they advance. It's a small reflection of the fact that Nesbitt is clearly not afraid to put his money where his mouth is.

Last week Nesbitt unveiled the long-anticipated 700m Northern Quarter development plan, which by 2010 will be eight acres with 1.4m square feet of retail nirvana including 47 shops, nearly a score of restaurants and bars, nearly 200 apartments and a swish hotel, bounded by O'Connell Street and the GPO, Middle Abbey Street, Liffey Street and Henry Street.

Arnotts itself will see its own remodelled operating space expand from 270,000 square feet to 320,000.

Penneys, across Henry Street, will also be revamped.

Arnotts hopes to come to terms with a strategic partner, almost certainly a construction firm, in the coming weeks, which will take a 20% stake in the project.

The plan has been in the making since shortly after Nesbitt, a senior counsel whose family had been associated with the business for much of its 150-year history, took Arnotts private in 2003 in a 265m deal. Soon after, Independent Newspapers decided to leave its historic Middle Abbey Street location.

Nesbitt led the newly-private department store on a property shopping spree, buying the old Indo building for 26m and leasing it back to the media group for 18 months. More adjacent sites were bought for another 40m.

"We had just concluded the take-private and suddenly Independent Newspapers for their own reasons put their building up for sale. We had to move quickly. We decided this was the right thing to do and we managed to bank it."

Some observers have imagined that Arnotts is steeling itself for a challenge from Debenhams, the British department store chain that recently purchased the retail business of Roches Stores and will put it head to head across Henry Street. This misunderstands the real battle in retail, which is whether shoppers will come into a city centre at all, or even leave the comforts of home if they can buy online.

Nesbitt is fairly dismissive of online shopping as a substitute for true retail therapy, despite figures last week from clothes retailer Next that showed flat high-street sales but more than 15% growth in internet and catalogue sales.

"I see the internet as taking up an area of selling that is important. But I don't think it's displacing real retailing.

The internet is no more than a method of liaising with someone who's supplying you.

"Take Amazon books. They nearly went down because they didn't have the logistics to effect the delivery. I don't think they thought that in. As I understand their business model, they wanted a lot of little booksellers to act as their warehouse and delivery, and that nearly failed. And other people have failed for that reason.

"I remember a friend of mine at a dinner party told a story. He said: I've had an idea. I'm going to get a piece of space, and I'm going to put things in it and I'm going to let people come and look at them and feel them, touch them, sit on them and know they want to have them. Then I'm going to let them have them.

Then I'm going to stand behind it and they'll know where to come if it didn't go right. And I said, what's that?

And he said, I think we'll call it a shop. Apply that to the internet and a lot of it is rubbish. It's not going to replace retailing."

He's equally provocative on the merits of out-of-town shopping. Whatever you do, don't compare Nesbitt's vision of a revitalised Dublin core to Dundrum.

"I personally can't see any comparison to Dundrum at all. I don't understand that point of view. I can see none.

Dundrum is a shopping centre. It seems to be a very good shopping centre but it's a shopping centre. That's the beginning and end of it.

"I'm not critical of Dundrum. But if you get on the Luas green line in Ranelagh, which way would you go to have the longest experience?

It's a no-brainer. You go to Grafton Street and the centre of Dublin. You will go out to Dundrum, because there are things to look at, but I think you predominately go the other direction."

Nesbitt, a self-described shopaholic, is a passionate advocate of the city centre.

One of his heroes is developer Mick Wallace, who through his Bar Italia development has helped energise another chunk of the city.

"He had a dream and stuck with it. I have little doubt, everyone he dealt with told him not to do it that way.

"Arnotts needs the area in which it is located to be a very popular retail area.

Retail is not about one shop monopolising. It's about a mix of different types of shops, different types of leisure, different types of restaurants getting together, a critical mass that is the city centre."

For that reason, the presence of an energised Debenhams just steps away from Arnotts helps, rather than hurts, Arnotts, by drawing more serious shoppers into town.

"And people want to go there. Because you get up in the morning, you go in, you start with your breakfast, you read the paper, you go shopping, you have a drink, you have something to eat, you shop a bit more and then you go to the theatre or the cinema or maybe just sit and watch people pass by. That's a day's entertainment. That's what it's about."

Nesbitt wasn't eager to get into the family business. "I remember coming out of college, there were no jobs. I became a barrister because it was one of the things you could do being self-employed.

Other than a third secretary in the Department of Foreign Affairs, there simply wasn't employment for somebody with my qualifications."

He remembers his father saying to him, "when that doesn't work out we'll get you a job in the shop".

Since besting two other consortia of bidders in 2003, and taking significant debt to make the acquisition, Nesbitt has been absorbed with the task of transforming Arnotts into a modern retailer.

"When we took it private it was going to be a big change.

We underwent a root-andbranch examination of the business to see what needed to be done to make differences that were relevant."

Steps the company has already taken include addressing areas in which it was seriously out of date. The company has spent 10m to introduce computerised inventory systems where none had been there before.

Staff had to be motivated to cope with change. Younger employees were put in buying positions to update fashions and the mix of brands.

Nesbitt points to the fact that despite the redevelopment plan, River Island has spent 1m remaking its own concession. In addition, Gap will open its first full-line shop in Ireland on 28 September, in Arnotts basement.

Nesbitt is cagey when asked about the company's trading performance, but does acknowledge that from now to the Christmas season will be crucial.

"We're cautiously optimistic we'll have growth on that period. Anywhere in the business we've touched we've had growth."

Pressed for more detail Nesbitt smiles: "We didn't go private to discuss our figures."

The scale of the project is breathtaking, turning some of the grimiest, darkest corners of Dublin city centre into gleaming thoroughfares. Yet Nesbitt is confident they will complete the project by 2010.

The one obvious area for potential problems is the planning process, but he says the company spent a year asking planners what they wanted for that part of the city before preparing its plans . . . something he hopes will help the process.

Now sitting on a lot of highpriced real estate and with plans to build 189 apartments, Nesbitt was surprisingly candid in reacting to comments by Dermot Desmond last week that have increased the jitters in Irish property circles.

"Retail failure will happen.

Retail development hasn't used the right concepts. It's built around having a site, not necessarily tied to the demographic. People are building retail property where there doesn't deserve to be retail property. If it's in the wrong place it's in the wrong place.

The great advantage we have is that we're in the right space.

"I've seen the market down and market up. If you've got good property, whatever the market's doing it's the right place to be."

Another controversial subject on which Nesbitt will not be baited is the future of Dublin GAA.

"If Dublin decides to divide along the Liffey, " said Nesbitt, who lives on the southside but heads an iconic northside business, "don't ask me which side Arnotts would sponsor. There isn't a way of dividing Dublin."

THE CV
RICHARD NESBITT
Job: Executive chairman of Arnotts since leading a 265 million buyout to take the department store company private in 2003.
Age: 55 Education: Kings Inns.
Hobbies: Cycling, cooking.
Car: "The most exciting thing about it is that the top comes down."

ARNOTTS
Employees: around 800
Turnover: "We didn't go private to discuss our "gures."
Quote: "Retail is a competitive sport. Get up in the morning and think."

rdelevan@tribune. ie