Belfast 2023
Titanic Quarter Chief Executive David Gavaghan sets out how the development is changing Belfast’s image and how a rising population can grow the city’s potential over the next decade.
A decade ago, Pat Doherty and Dermot Desmond acquired Fred Olsen’s interests in Titanic Quarter. It might have been fanciful then to think that more than £280 million would have been invested in the area in time for the Titanic’s centenary commemoration last year. For many, Pat’s dream to transform a derelict shipyard was just that: a dream. Happily dreams come true. By working together across Belfast, anything can be achieved. The corollary is equally true.
Today, Titanic Quarter (TQ) is one of the great regeneration projects on these two islands with more than 1.3 million square feet of new space. TQ today is capturing the innovation displayed during the ship-building era and transforming the area into a hub for high quality investment and development.
Titanic Belfast is the world’s largest Titanic visitor attraction. Having opened in March 2012, it has already attracted almost 700,000 visitors.
A stunning gateway office home to Citi, one of the largest financial services companies in the world, is the first step towards a major financial services centre.
The Titanic Studios underwent a major expansion in 2012 and provide one of Europe’s largest TV and movie production sets. HBO’s globally acclaimed Game of Thrones, filmed on the site, is now into in its third series.
Belfast Metropolitan College’s Titanic Campus, a new state-of-the-art educational centre, is supporting 16,000 full and part-time students. The adjacent Public Record Office of Northern Ireland is a bespoke facility facilitating greater educational opportunities and tourism with 28 miles of records.
Around 1,000 people are now living in the Arc apartments overlooking the public realm space and Abercorn Basin, creating some of the best waterfront residences on the island. The adjacent Premier Inn hotel is thriving.
TQ has also hosted a number of high-profile events, including the Titanic Sounds MTV concert, the largest outdoor arts event in Ireland with an audience of 16,000, and an annual 10k run. The T13 urban sports facility is a cool place for kids from five to 50-plus.
The quarter’s commercial space includes Audi’s stunning new showroom and a diverse offering of 500,000 square feet of commercial and industrial space. The Northern Ireland Science Park provides 24 acres of office and R&D space, housing 100 indigenous and international organisations, and is increasingly recognised as a centre of excellence.
TQ is becoming a leading destination for foreign direct investment in Northern Ireland, integrating advanced ICT into the physical form and fabric of a new 21st century city experience. Increasingly, the area is a pivotal centre-piece in a worldwide campaign to rebrand Belfast’s reputation and create a shared space in a new era for Northern Ireland.
Developing sustainable community regeneration through renewed civic pride and cohesion, TQ represents the city’s future, encouraging corporations to invest and encouraging young and old to return to these shores. The development is creating a vibrant new community in the heart of Belfast.
So collectively, what sort of Belfast might we achieve in the next decade? The critical issue is to reverse its long-term decline in population. With more than 400,000 people in the 1950s, its population now stands at 280,000. A sine qua non to the future economic, social and environmental well-being of the region is that Belfast’s population swells.
Based on current demographic trends, Northern Ireland’s population should be two million by 2025 (it’s currently 1.8 million) and Belfast’s should be around 300,000 on a pro-rata basis. This still sits uncomfortably with global urbanisation trends. So let us dream and imagine Belfast’s population will exceed 350,000.
Titanic Quarter’s objective is to play our part in creating a diverse range of employment, living and leisure, redefining Belfast as a destination of choice. Today, TQ is a must visit destination with nearly 1,000 people living and 4,000 people working daily within the development. We have three specific targets for the middle of the next decade: 10,000 residents; 30,000 workers and two million visitors.
Dreaming this may be but, if you come to Titanic Quarter today, you can not only glimpse its illustrious past but you will hopefully sense a future full of possibility.
