£25m property scheme for Belfast city centre

BELFAST businessman Mr Diljit Rana has been selected as the preferred developer for a £25 million hotel, office and leisure development close to Great Victoria Street - the city's "Golden Mile". The project could create up to 1,500 new jobs.

Mr Rana already owns three hotels in Belfast, the Holiday Inn Garden Court (formerly known as the Plaza) in Brunswick Street, the Holiday Inn Express in University Street, and Renshaws, also in University Street.

In the latest property project his company Andras House Developments was chosen ahead of more than a dozen others to develop a 2.5 acre site which it is purchasing from the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. He was helped in the preparation of the bid by the Belfast property company Ewart, which is keen to link up with Mr Rana in a joint venture.

The plan is to build a 72 suite luxury hotel, 100 luxury apartments, an entertainment centre, shops, restaurants, and office accommodation.

The hotel development is the latest of a number being planned for the city, which is badly in need of accommodation for tourists and business visitors. At present Belfast has around 1,700 bedspaces, with another 1,000 or so in prospect. This compares with 10,000 already available in Dublin, and 13,000 in Glasgow.

Work is under way on a number of new hotels in the city, among them the £9 million Jury's Inn, and the £21 million 182 bedroom Hilton. The Hilton is being built on one acre site at Laganside, close to the city centre, and is due for completion in the summer of 1998.

Not far from the city, the Scottish hotel group Stakis is building a £16.3 million, 130 bedroom hotel and leisure complex on 220 acres of parkland at the Castle Upton Estate, close to Belfast International Airport.

The Northern Ireland Tourist Board has said that in spite of the gloom provoked by the violence of last summer, its development division is currently handling around 50 projected hotel projects. Of these, 12 are new developments, while the remainder are extensions or improvements to existing premises.

Among the outstanding planning applications is one for a 100 bedroom Holiday Inn at Shaw's Bridge in south Belfast, and a similar sized development in the east of the city, on a site owned by the London based company Acorn Construction.