Transformation of Belfast's Sailortown into a business district continues as huge 'City Quays 5' project given the go-ahead
A new 140ft (42m) office block on the edge of Belfast city centre has passed its final planning hurdle.
The 'City Quays 5' project is the latest step in turning the old Sailortown area into a "business district" says economist Richard Ramsey, helping to shift the "centre of gravity" of the city.
It was given the green light by Belfast City Council's planning committee in June, and a meeting of the full council on Monday night effectively rubber-stamped that decision, paving the way for the plans to be brought to fruition.
The 10-storey block will become a prominent part of the skyline in the northern part of the city, rising above the nearby M3 flyover across the Lagan River.
It will stand on land opposite the historic Harbour Commissioners' Office, down the street from the listed Sinclair Seamen's Presbyterian Church, and beside an existing NCP multi-storey car park (the one decorated with blue panelling).
The land is currently a car park.
It would comprise about 221,000 sq ft (20,500sq m) of floorspace - the vast majority of it "grade A" office space.
It will also include "retail, restaurant, community and cultural uses at ground floor" and the seventh floor is earmarked to become a restaurant with an "external terrace".
It is the latest major building project in that part of the city, which has seen the new Ulster University campus constructed in the last several years, plus blocks of student accommodation to go with it.
As the name suggests, City Quays 5 is the fifth step in a bigger plan which has involved building a business park on the edge of Sailortown and the AC Hotel, among other things.
Richard Ramsey, who was until recently Ulster Bank's chief economist, said before the City Quays project, the area had the Belfast Harbour Commissioners' Office and "very little" else.
"That whole area is being transformed and it just looks more professional and more like a business district," he said.
"It's transforming the land use of what was previously an area you'd have had little office footfall."
He said its part of a northward shift in the "centre-of-gravity" of the city's centre's office district, "similar to the way the entertainment has moved down towards Cathedral Quarter from the city centre".
But is there demand for this much new office space?
"There's certainly not the demand there was before Covid. But I suppose one of the things which has been happening is businesses have then been upgrading and going to the best possible space they can get. There's a bit of a kind of flight-to-quality."
In other words, firms are prepared to abandon their existing office buildings in the city centre for newer ones elsewhere.
"Ultimately the big problem is going to be the older office buildings are going to be left, and who's going to want them?
"They're going to be the kind of ugly ducklings of the office accommodation world. The problem is, do you convert them? Is that too expensive? Do you pull them down?
"Given they [the City Quays 5 applicants] have gone ahead with this and put it through planning, they've certainly got the confidence to attract [firms into] that office space.
"My concern is then just on all the other office space, grade B and grade C. What happens with that? Ultimately is it just going to become surplus to requirements? And a lot of that is in the city centre."