Belfast’s Windsor House office block — one of the tallest buildings in Ireland — has been acquired by Hastings Hotels. The leisure group paid £6.5m for the 23-storey complex and will submit conversion plans within weeks.
The 122,557sq ft landmark building was taken over by the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) after its owner was placed into administration. Insolvency experts at Smith & Williamson were appointed as administrators early in 2012 and late last year commissioned CBRE Belfast to market to the property.
In a statement Hastings — which owns six hotels in Northern Ireland, including the Culloden and the Slieve Donard, as well as a 50 per cent share of Dublin’s Merrion Hotel — said it has purchased the former office tower to capitalise on the planned expansion of Belfast’s Waterfront Hall and ahead of several major events coming to the city.
Commenting on the group’s first purchase since 1993, marketing director Julie Hastings said: “Tourism in Northern Ireland continues to thrive and it’s ideal timing to extend our portfolio of hotels, especially with an increase in business tourism, which will be helped by the opening of the £29.5m expansion of the Belfast Waterfront next year.”
The statement confirmed that “planning permission for a hotel of major city international quality will be submitted within a few weeks” and that award-winning Belfast architects, WDR & RT Taggarts, is already working on designs.
“Windsor House’s prime city centre location is ideally situated to meet the urgent demand that the hotel sector requires to satisfy the growing business activity and the increase in tourism prospects.” The statement also said Hastings hoped to create at least 150 jobs when redevelopment was complete.
Following the sale, Gavin Elliott at CBRE commented: “Windsor House has been traded a number of times over the last 10 years with each landlord having proposed a variety of schemes for redevelopment. It has, however, only recently been viable for a full redevelopment to take place as the building nears complete vacancy.
“This purchase presents a huge opportunity for Belfast in particular with strong demand for hotel and leisure space in the city centre.
“Windsor House offers a large amount of accommodation in a core location, which is well positioned to take full advantage of this urgent surge in demand within the hotel and leisure sector,” he added.
The prospect of additional city hotel space was also welcomed by Visit Belfast chief executive, Gerry Lennon. “This investment by the Hastings Hotel Group demonstrates the level of confidence in Belfast’s tourism future, delivering jobs and prosperity to the local economy,” he said.
Built in 1974, Windsor House has always been a dominant feature on the city’s skyline. In addition to its 22 floors of office space it contains a double deck car park at ground and first floor levels with parking for almost 100 vehicles. It was badly damaged in an IRA bomb in 1992 and was last sold in 2006 for £30m.
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