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Date: 24 October 2025
Category: City regeneration and development
Belfast City Council has today (Friday October 24) completed the purchase of the historic Assembly Rooms, rear extension and adjacent assets in Cathedral Quarter as part of its ongoing city centre regeneration drive.
Vacant since 2000, Assembly Rooms is a Grade B1 listed heritage building on the corner of North Street and Waring Street which dates to 1769 and is one of Belfast’s most prominent and architecturally important public buildings. It’s where plans to establish a slave trading company were rejected in 1786, the famous Belfast Harp Festival was held in 1792, and where Henry Joy McCracken was sentenced to death in 1798.
The World Monuments Fund (WMF), the leading independent organisation safeguarding the world’s most treasured places, selected the Assembly Rooms for inclusion on the 2025 World Monuments Watch, a bi-annual global programme that spotlights 25 heritage sites of extraordinary significance across the world facing urgent challenges, with the aim of raising awareness, mobilising resources, and implementing conservation initiatives.
Potential future uses for the Assembly Rooms are currently being explored for the Council’s consideration and approval.
The Council has also bought the following adjacent property from Castlebrooke Investments:
- part of the Donegall Street carpark site
- 5 – 9 North Street (former Laffin Travel building)
- Braddell’s Building, 11 North St (Grade B1 Listed Building)
The Council has also agreed supplementary planning guidance for the Cathedral and Northeast Quarter of city centre which seeks to promote a heritage-led approach to regeneration of this area, comprising a range of residential and mixed-use opportunities focused around a central creative and innovation corridor. Consultation on this planning guidance will launch later this autumn.
The reinvigoration and repurposing of this cluster will act as an important regeneration catalyst well beyond the fabric of the individual buildings themselves, catalysing further investment in this strategic area.
Councillor Natasha Brennan, Chair of Belfast City Council’s Strategic Policy and Resources Committee said: “The Assembly Rooms is one of Belfast’s most historic assets, so this is both a significant and a symbolic purchase for council. Regenerating this area of the city centre is a key focus for us, and our acquisition of The Assembly Rooms and neighbouring properties gives us an important opportunity to breathe new life and vibrancy into it.
“Belfast’s success depends on a successful city core – that’s why we’re focusing a range of initiatives to make our city centre the best it can be. Our successful Vacant to Vibrant initiative has awarded 48 grants to help restore vacant city centre units – 23 of those have helped, or are helping, to regenerate a historic building or building of interest. We’ll be opening Belfast Stories, a stunning new public space, visitor attraction and creative hub for the city in 2030. We’re also transforming Cathedral Gardens into a world-class public space for people to gather, relax and play by next year, and our partnership with GRAHAM will deliver £280m worth of residential-led, mixed use developments in the city centre and provide much needed city centre living – so the jigsaw pieces really are coming together to create the vibrant, accessible and thriving city centre we all want to see and experience.”