Belfast’s Royal Avenue Art Deco building is set to be transformed into a £100m visitor attraction and a creative hub by 2023 – and City Council is appealing to the public to have their say on the project.
Dubbed Belfast Stories, the building – formerly a Bank of Ireland – is a 5,000 sqm site and will focus on sharing stories from people who have lived and visited Belfast.
These stories will be told in different ways, including interactive media, music, printed and in ways that are ‘yet to be imagined’ as part of the venue’s drive to attract 700,000 visitors annually.
As part of a public consultation, people will have until midnight on February 23 to submit views on the project’s concept, which is a partnership between Oslo-based architects Snøhetta, the firm responsible for designing the Oslo Opera House and the 9/11 Memorial Pavilion in New York, and Belfast-based TODD Architects.
Paul Crowe, director at TODD Architects, says that the space will be highly multifunctional and ever-changing. “It’s a very live, active facility that will continue to be. It’s also a place for orientating yourself in the city. It’s not just about tourists, about locals. It’s places to meet, places to gather. And it’s been described as what’s going to be a landmark architectural point in the city.”
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The ambitious project hopes to become a space where locals and tourists can explore Belfast’s rich history and present.
“It’s not only a visitor attraction, although it’s a huge part of it. But it’s also a place for meeting. It’s a public space and it’s also a creative hub for artists, for digital technology, for events and for screen and cinema. So a very multifunctional building.”
The proposal for the space includes a rooftop garden with views of Belfast’s cityscape and an outdoor music venue with a capacity of 6,000 people. At the beginning of last year, the outdoor music venue was given the green light for an entertainment license for throughout the week.
Stories is a flagship project of the £1 billion Belfast Region City Deal programme of investment, contributing to the programme’s vision of driving inclusive economic growth, making a positive impact on some of the region’s most deprived communities, and contributing to a balanced spread of benefits across the city, region and NI.
The site’s visitor experience is to be designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates (RAA), the world’s largest practice dedicated to the planning and design of cultural attractions, including the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC and the Obama Presidential Centre in Chicago.
Belfast Stories programme director Wendy Langham stresses the project is one of the first steps of the city’s regeneration. “We talk about Belfast Stories as being a tourism led regeneration project for the city, so it’s really important for our local economy to have more people coming into the city and spending more time here.”
“This is an £100 million investment into the city. We hope to attract at least 700,000 new visitors to our city every year, which will ultimately support huge investment on an ongoing basis in the economy.”
“In terms of jobs, we think of the construction jobs and then the ongoing jobs that it will support in the city about 1,200 – they’ll not all be working in Belfast Stories, but every day whenever Belfast Stories is open, there’ll be about 130 employees.”
The area is currently being used as a community space before development will begin on the site. Currently heritage stories are being told through food and plants, alongside an urban garden which is accessible to the public.
Lord Mayor Micky Murray has made a call to the public to get involved in the consultation process, adding; “Belfast Stories is exactly what it says it is. It is the story of Belfast and this project is going to be with our city for many, many years to come. So it’s incredibly important we get as many people involved as possible.”
“This is part of the Belfast Region city deal, and it’s going to do great things to regenerate this entire part of our city centre”.
To get involved in the consultation process for Belfast Stories, you can access the project’s website at https://yoursay.belfastcity.gov.uk/belfast-stories.