Ulster University has made a multi-million pound investment to snap up prime property adjacent to its Belfast and Derry campuses which will it says will enhance the student experience in the years ahead.
And it includes the significant purchase of the 0.65-acre Irish News site in Donegall Street, which sits alongside the university's 800,000 sq ft York Street campus in the bustling Cathedral Quarter, opened last September.
The Irish News' Belfast headquarters building of the last 118 years went on sale on the open market in January for £3.5 million, ahead of the paper transferring in the coming weeks to a new ultra-modern headquarters building at the Fountain Centre, which is currently home to its sister operation Q Radio.
The newspaper premises runs through to the university’s York Lane entrance to its Students’ Union with part of the site of 113 Donegall Street a three-storey Grade B2 listed building.
Irish News managing director Dominic Fitzpatrick said: “The sale of the historic Irish News building to Ulster University creates a fantastic legacy for what was the home of our newspaper for over a century.
“We will be sorry to leave Donegall Street, which has served us so well down the generations, but we are looking forward to all the opportunities associated with our new home.”