Stormont offices would cost £100m to restore, committee told

It would cost at least £100m to make a listed building on Stormont estate usable again, assembly members (MLAs) have been told.

Dundonald House is the former headquarters of the Department of Agriculture and the NI Prison Service.

It was closed in 2023 on safety grounds after masonry began falling from the roof.

Officials from the Department of Finance (DoF) said demolition was still being explored as an option despite the building's protected status.

It was listed 2021 as it is considered to be a rare, well-preserved example of 1960s International Style modernist architecture in Northern Ireland.

Desi McDonnell, director of the properties division in the DoF, was updating MLAs on the process of rationalising government buildings in Northern Ireland.

He said that even a £100m upgrade of Dundonald House would not bring it up to the most modern energy efficiency standards.

He added that given the size of the building, it would only be of use to the public sector if every civil servant currently working in Belfast was moved into it.

"What we are looking at is if there is something some other way around the listing. I don't know it that's viable," he told the finance committee.

"We don't want it becoming like the courthouse on the Crumlin Road. We want to find some solution to this."

The listed Crumlin Road courthouse has fallen into serious disrepair since it was closed in 1998.

It has been through several changes of ownership in that time but no viable regeneration scheme emerged.

The current owner, property developer David Mahon, is in the preliminary stages of bringing forward a new scheme.

The committee also heard that County Hall in Ballymena is going to be sold as part of the office rationalisation exercise.

The site on the Galgorm Road will likely be of interest to housing developers.

People who currently work there will relocate to Academy House in the town centre.