Despite the economic downturn, Belfast’s development continues to transform the city. 

Belfast is seeing the benefit of unprecedented investment in cultural, leisure and business facilities and this is most apparent at Titanic Quarter which is shaping up to be Northern Ireland’s Canary Wharf.
Stephen Cross, corporate partner at Cleaver Fulton Rankin, (pictured) believes the next couple of years will totally transform the emerging economic colossus that is the Titanic Quarter developing rapidly in Belfast’s historic docklands.

“The site is beginning to gain some momentum,” he said, “and the pace of economic development is changing the area almost on a monthly basis.”

“If you are looking for some signs of economic optimism in Northern Ireland then look no further than the Titanic Quarter because I believe in a few years time it will be as beneficial to the regional economy as Canary Wharf is to the City of London.”

Leading Belfast law firm, Cleaver Fulton Rankin is heavily involved in shaping developments taking place throughout Belfast and in particular in the area that used to be the heart of a world-renowned shipbuilding industry.

“We are seeing this large and ambitious development becoming a tangible reality with Belfast Metropolitan College beginning to take shape and the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland nearing completion.  These two developments are complemented by the Gateway Office development and the residential development around Abercorn Basin which are already bringing people to live and work in Titanic Quarter,” said Mr Cross. 

“With all this and the Titanic Signature Project due to open in two years time, this area of Belfast is going to be unrecognisably transformed into an economic generator that will benefit not just Belfast but the rest of the region, sucking in investment from GB, the Republic and from around the globe.

“On top of that we will see services develop in parallel because the anticipated numbers who will live and work in TQ will all need to be fed, watered and entertained.”

He pointed out that when people first go to Canary Wharf they see the skyscrapers and offices but don’t immediately see the apartments, the shopping, the restaurants and pubs and the services industries which inevitably have to be in place to make such a community function.

“Belfast will have its own Canary Wharf on its doorstep and I don’t think we properly understand yet just what that will mean for the region’s economy in terms of the investment it will attract, the quality of jobs that will be created and the new industries that will grow up in the midst of it,” said Mr Cross, who also pointed out the success enjoyed by the Science Park and the film production industry growing around the old Harland & Wolff Paint Hall, both  also in the heart of the docklands.

He went on; “Belfast and Northern Ireland has had to face the realities of a changing economic environment with the long term decline of our region’s traditional manufacturing industries but with the level of investment now coming in to the region, even in the midst of a global downturn, one can see how well positioned our economy will be to grasp the new opportunities presented by a new economic landscape.  Tourism, the arts, media and IT will all be blended together to make Belfast stand out as a centre of global significance.”

Mr Cross believes Titanic Quarter can be the economic catalyst Northern Ireland requires over the next five years as it moves out of recession, embraces new opportunities and becomes less reliant on the public sector.

The best, he says, is yet to come.