150 construction jobs created in office scheme
A NEW 11-storey office building in Belfast city centre is set to create 150 construction jobs as part of a £20m investment, it can be revealed.
French property firm Stargime is pressing ahead with plans for the new development. It wants to build the office scheme at Graham House at Albert Square in Belfast city centre, and has plans to turn it into a building which can hold around 350 staff.
The building will also include a ground floor cafe and restaurant. Holywood-based Strategic Planning is working with the developers.
It will include 120,000 sq ft of new build office accommodation and will be worth around £600,000 a year in rates to Belfast City Council.
Stargime took on Graham House in December 2015 with initial proposals to redevelop the site to provide up to 80,000 sq ft of grade A office accommodation.
It comes after the Paris-based business hit a wall last year over plans to build a modern extension on to the nearby former First Trust Bank building, designed by Queen’s University architect Sir Charles Lanyon, at Queen’s Square in the heart of the city.
However, a third-party report commissioned for Belfast City Council raised concerns over the “considerable disadvantages of the impact on both the listed building and the setting in the square”.
The developer is now revising plans.
Regarding the Graham House scheme, and following a pre-planning notice, a full application has now been submitted to Belfast City Council.
Graham House is a three-storey building which was originally built as two separate buildings.