Major city development unveiled

Model view of the development

A £30m commercial development for Belfast city centre's riverside area has been unveiled.

The project, at a half-acre site on Donegall Quay, by the River Lagan, will include a four-star hotel, apartments and commercial office suites.

Plans for a seven-storey building linked to an 18-storey tower that, together, will provide 250,000 square feet of floor space were unveiled by the company behind the project, Donegall Quay Limited on Tuesday.

The development will include specialist shopping units and restaurants, as well as 130 high standard apartments.

An investment of this kind, across the river from the Odyssey, can only serve to enrich the riverside experience

Tony Hopkins Laganside chairman

The announcement was welcomed by Northern Ireland Social Development Minister Nigel Dodds.

"The development proposal is evidence of continued private sector confidence in the Laganside Initiative and in Belfast city centre," he said.

"We have seen investment in and around the Laganside area totalling more than £730m and more than 10,000 people now have jobs within the area, a figure which will rise to over 16,000 by 2005."

Tony Hopkins, Chairman of Laganside, said the project was a landmark in regenerating the central areas of Belfast.

"This is the type of high quality and imaginative development to enhance the progress which has already been made as the dynamic momentum of Laganside continues," he said.

"An investment of this kind, across the river from the Odyssey, can only serve to enrich the riverside experience."