Room for optimism as hotel developer bets on Belfast

BELFAST BRIEFING:OPENING A new five-star hotel in the middle of an economic downturn takes more than a sliver of courage.

Combine this with the fact that the five-star hotel in question is located in Northern Ireland – where according to latest research the hotel sector is experiencing a sharp downturn – and it raises the question who would be brave enough to embark on such a venture.

Step up June Burgess, the Co Down businesswoman who has just put the finishing touches to her £27 million (€28.8 million) labour of love in the heart of Belfast city centre.

Burgess is the woman behind Graffan Properties, which owns Belfast’s new Fitzwilliam Hotel, beside the Grand Opera House on Great Victoria Street.

The 130-bedroom hotel, which opened earlier this month, has created more than 100 jobs, but more importantly has sent a defiant message that business people such as Burgess believe Belfast is still worth investing in.

The hotel, which is run on a day-to-day basis by Hotel Partners, is a sister hotel to the Fitzwilliam Hotel in Dublin but it is very much a Burgess project, reflecting her enthusiasm and passion for the development.

Graffan Properties is not quite a household name in the North yet but Burgess has been quietly building up a substantial property portfolio since she first set up the business four years ago.

The company has assets not only in Northern Ireland but also in other parts of the UK and South Africa.

Burgess is a chartered landscape architect by profession and enjoys the challenge of seeing the raw potential in a project and bringing it to fruition.

She acquired the site where the Fitzwilliam Hotel now sits as an investment property some time ago and did a deal to enable the Grand Opera House to extend its facilities in 2006.

According to Burgess, the original plan for the site was to build office accommodation but she took a leap of faith and went with the idea of developing a hotel. She was determined to stamp her values on the development and employ her “perfectionist” and “highly meticulous” approach to the project.

The result is a luxurious, environmentally-considerate hotel which has the principles of reduce, recycle and reuse at the cornerstone of its operations.

Burgess admits she perhaps with hindsight might not have chosen this exact time to open a five-star hotel against the backdrop of the credit crunch and general economic gloom which pervades across the North.

But the prevailing conditions have not dampened her determination that her hotel is going to become a new landmark for the city and Northern Ireland as whole.

Burgess says: “I am looking at a long-term picture. I know where I want to go and I know how I am going to get there. I chose to build this hotel in Northern Ireland because I live here and I believe in Northern Ireland people.

“The hotel is located on what is really a major junction of the city which symbolises the past and future for Belfast. You can look down one street and see in the distance what could have been a no-go area and look up another and see the beauty and the history of the Grand Opera House. What the Fitzwilliam Hotel does is bring it all together; it represents a new landmark for where the city is going.”

She admits there are some people who will think it is “crazy” to open a luxury hotel as unemployment continues to rise across Northern Ireland and tourist numbers are predicted to decline.

But Burgess reflects the quiet spirit of perseverance that has been the backbone of the North’s business community through good times and bad.