Assembly Rooms

City centre regeneration

We bought the historic Assembly Rooms, rear extension and adjacent assets on 24 October 2025, as part of our ongoing city centre regeneration drive. These are all places in Cathedral Quarter.

History of Assembly Rooms

Vacant since 2000, Assembly Rooms is a Grade B1 listed building on the corner of North Street and Waring Street. It dates back to 1769 and is one of Belfast’s most prominent and architecturally important heritage buildings.

Assembly Rooms is where:

• plans to establish a slave trading company were rejected in 1786
• Belfast Harp Festival was held in 1792, and
• Henry Joy McCracken was sentenced to death in 1798.

World Monuments Watch

The World Monuments Fund (WMF) is an independent organisation safeguarding the world’s most treasured places.

WMF selected the Assembly Rooms for inclusion on their 2025 World Monuments Watch. This is a biennial 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.

Future uses for Assembly Rooms and surrounding area

We are currently exploring potential future uses for the Assembly Rooms building.

We also bought these properties adjacent to the Assembly Rooms:

• part of Donegall Street car park
• 5-9 North Street (former Laffin Travel building)
• Braddell’s Building, 11 North Street (Grade B1 Listed Building)

We anticipate that the reinvigoration and repurposing of this cluster will act as a regeneration catalyst and encourage further investment in this important area of Belfast city centre.

Photograph of Assembly Rooms exterior