Opinions sought on Belfast redevelopment to replace Tribeca

A public consultation has opened on new plans for a major redevelopment scheme in Belfast city centre, which has replaced the controversial Tribeca proposal.

The owners of the Tribeca redevelopment scheme have proposed a new plan focused on housing.

Castlebrooke Investments has owned the large site next to St Anne's Cathedral since 2016 but has made little progress with it.

The area has become increasingly derelict and there have been calls for the scheme to be taken into public ownership.

Castlebrooke has now filed a pre-application planning notice proposing 1,000 new homes and two hotels.

The Tribeca name has also been dropped.

An experienced property consultant, Gerry Hughes, has been appointed to lead the project.

"We recognise that Tribeca split opinion - this is not a commercial scheme in that you would want to brand it in a certain way," he said.

"It is a residential scheme that comprises two hotels and eight residential blocks.

"Each one of those blocks will be branded in their own way so we decided this time to focus on the historic fabric of the city."

The scheme includes five listed buildings, four of which are being refurbished.

"The fifth is the North Street Arcade and that is clearly in a condition that means it is impossible to refurbish completely," Hughes said.

"What we are doing with that is retaining the two entrance points and creating a new thoroughfare."

Hughes said the area had been "in a state of disrepair" since before Castlebrooke bought the site.

"The disrepair is not the responsibility of Castlebrooke, it is there, but what we are trying to do is trying to fix that and we are determined to make that happen," he added.

Plans to redevelop the area which lies between St Anne's Cathedral and Royal Avenue have made little progress in the last 20 years.

A retail-led scheme called Royal Exchange scheme was first proposed by a different developer in 2006.

It was granted planning permission, but stalled because of the property crash.

In 2016, the scheme was sold to Castlebrooke by the Cerberus investment fund which had control of the loans underlying the properties.

Castlebrooke got planning permission for the office-led Tribeca scheme in 2020 but the rise of working from home made that plan increasingly unviable.

The proposals included office space, apartments and some retail use.

Last year the company sold some of its properties to Belfast City Council.

The council paid about £3m for the historic Assembly Rooms and some adjacent properties.

Castlebrooke said its new plan would create a new street and a number of alleyways and public spaces to link the neighbourhood into the wider city centre street network.

It also envisages a "revitalised" Writers' Square, a public space directly opposite the cathedral.

The use of Writers' Square has been a point of contention between Castlebrooke and Stormont's Department for Communities which owns it.

Castlebrooke will hold an in-person public consultation event on 30 June and 1 July at the Masonic Hall on Rosemary Street.

It is then intending to submit a full planning application in the autumn.