Belfast: £25m hotel plan for Crumlin Road courthouse
The North's most infamous courthouse could be reopened as a luxury hotel.
Planning permission is being sought to transform the Crumlin Road courthouse in Belfast, which closed eight years ago. In a £25m (€37m) project which could create more than 200 jobs.
Barry Gilligan, the developer heading the scheme, said: “It offers an excellent opportunity for luxury hotel operators to get into the burgeoning Northern Ireland business and tourism marketplace in an absolutely unique building.”
The huge entrance hall, the two main courtrooms where hundreds of IRA men and loyalist paramilitaries were jailed, as well as an underground tunnel which links one of the docks to a former jail on the opposite side of the road, would be among the historical features to be retained as part of the massive refurbishment.
Conservation architect Dawson Stelfox, who once climbed Everest, has been hired to carry out the design work nearly 150 years after the building opened at a cost of just £16,500 (€24,200).
The original architect was Charles Lanyon who was also involved in the construction of some of Belfast’s landmark buildings including City Hall, Custom House, Belfast Castle and Queens University.
With an estimated six million visitors last year, the city is crying out for more hotel accommodation, according to Mr Gilligan. The proposed new hotel would have 161 beds and an application has been submitted for Government funding.
Mr Gilligan, who is also vice-chairman of the Northern Ireland Policing Board, said: “The Crumlin Road courthouse is an essential part of the history of Belfast, as well as being a very beautiful building.
“I think its use as an hotel provides it with a new future that will allow many thousands of people to come through it, and appreciate its architecture and its history.
“It has a multiple of potential uses – lectures and talks, business seminars, tourist trail tours and even, as is happening in some of the world’s smartest hotels, as an occasional private cinema.”
The courthouse is situated between the Shankill and Crumlin Roads, close to the Mater Hospital, and in an area in urgent need of redevelopment. Building could mean work for 300.
Mr Gilligan, who has been given the backing of several local groups, claimed: “I am confident that this proposal can kick-start further regeneration in the area.”
The feared loyalist Shankill Butchers, the Milltown Cemetery killer Michael Stone and dozens of IRA men jailed on the word of former associates turned informers, were among hundreds sentenced in the courthouse, once by a judge wearing a bullet-proof vest and protected by police officers armed with high velocity rifles who stood guard on either side of him.
It closed in June 1998, just weeks after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, but the new building would retain much of its character if the scheme is given the go-ahead.
Mr Stelfox confirmed: “We hope our new designs have captured the grandeur of the Victorian era as well as providing the form and function required of a top quality hotel.”
Gerry Lennon, the Belfast Visitor and Convention Bureau chief executive, said: “This type of very high quality proposal is exactly what we need here in order to attract the right type of operator, either to expand its portfolio or for a new entrant to the market.”
