Belfast City Council has agreed to purchase the Clarendon House site on Adelaide Street and develop a new 100,000 sq ft office building ready for occupation in a £24.7m deal with McAleer & Rushe.
The scheme, designed by Todd Architects, received planning permission at last night’s Belfast City Council planning committee meeting and will be the most significant office development in the city for ten years.
It will support several hundred jobs during construction. It will be funded at no cost to the ratepayer by efficiencies achieved from rationalising the council’s existing office estate and selling a number of surplus redundant buildings.
Declan Boyle, chairman of the council’s Strategic Policy and Resources Committee said:
“We are delighted to be working on this development in partnership with McAleer & Rushe. This is further significant investment in the city centre by Belfast City Council, following on from our £150 million investment programme which was launched in 2012.
“It is part of our approach to maximise efficiencies by clustering our staff and services within close proximity. The site is close to our existing buildings at City Hall and the Cecil Ward Building on Linenhall Street. The building will provide us with 100,000 sq ft of modern, flexible accommodation.
“We have already started the process of centralising our customer facing services within the Cecil Ward Building where the new Belfast Planning Service and the Consumer Advice Centre are now located, with Cemetery Services also being moved to the site from City Hall later this year”.
Stephen Surphlis Property Director at McAleer & Rushe said:
“McAleer & Rushe is very pleased to have been awarded the contract. We look forward to working with Belfast City Council to deliver this high quality office development which will be finished to BREEAM Excellent standard in line with current corporate occupier sustainability and energy efficient requirements.
“This deal comes at time of rising demand for Grade A office stock within the Belfast and hopefully will act as a catalyst for other office projects in the City.”
McAleer & Rushe is a multi-award winning construction, development, investment and asset management firm with nearly 50 years’ experience of real estate projects across the UK and Ireland, headquartered in Cookstown and London.
For further information please contact: Robert Gibson at Grenadier on 0207 834 6263 / 07748 182 234