Grand Central Hotel Belfast

The name Grand Central Hotel Belfast refers to two separate hotels at different locations in the city. The first opened in 1893 and was converted to a military barracks in 1972, before being demolished in the late 1980s. The second is a converted office building nearby, previously known as Windsor House, which was converted to a hotel and opened on 20 June 2018.

First Grand Central Hotel
The first Grand Central Hotel, in the mid-1980s

The first Grand Central Hotel was located on Royal Avenue in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and opened in 1893. The hotel contained around 200 guest bedrooms and hosted many famous guests, including the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the 1960s.

The hotel was taken over by the British Army in 1972 for use as a military base from which to patrol the city centre during the height of the Troubles. The troops based there were protected by anti-rocket screens constructed around the front of the building on the main street to repel everything from bricks and bottles to paint and blast bombs. One of the most bombarded hotels in the world, it was attacked more than 150 times by the Provisional IRA and other groups.

In the late 1980s, the hotel was no longer required as a military base. It was acquired by developers and demolished, along with a neighbouring building, to make way for the CastleCourt shopping centre which was completed in 1990.

Second Grand Central Hotel
Windsor House, May 2010

The second Grand Central Hotel was originally constructed as Windsor House (officially known as 9-15 Bedford Street), a 23-story, 80 m high-rise building on Bedford Street in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The building was the tallest storeyed building in Ireland before being surpassed by Obel Tower (also in Belfast) and stands at 85 metres (262 feet) tall, with 23 floors.

Constructed in 1974[1] as an office building, Windsor House has a tall green elevator shaft and green side wall facade, as well as satellite and aerial masts, which stand a further seven metres in the air.

The building was badly damaged in an IRA bombing in 1992.[1] It was sold for £30m in 2006 to County Cavan building firm P Elliot. In March 2007 plans were made to convert the building into a block of flats. However, the conversion plans fell through.

In May 2015, Hastings Hotel Group, an NI-based hospitality company, purchased the building for £6.5m. A planning application was submitted on 23 June 2015, proposing refurbishment, partial demolition and rebuilding, extension and change of use of Windsor House for a hotel (304 bedrooms) with associated restaurant and bar facilities (on ground to 15th floor) and 18 serviced hotel apartments on the 16 and the 17th floors; creation of new retail unit on ground floor overlooking Franklin Street; retention and refurbishment and extension of office use (25,000 ft2) on upper floors (18th to 22nd floor).[2] The planning application was approved 20 October 2015 and redevelopment work commenced in July 2016. Following a £30m refurbishment, the new hotel opened on 20 June 2018 as the Grand Central Hotel.[1]

See also

References
  1. "Belfast Grand Central Hotel: Hastings unveils plan to transform Windsor House into a £30m hotel". Belfasttelegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 29 September 2018.
  2. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-04-13. Retrieved 2017-07-05.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)


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