Harcourt Developments has bought Fred Olsen Energy’s Titanic Properties subsidiary – which owns Belfast’s Titanic Quarter regeneration site and the adjacent Channel Commercial Park – for £50m.
In March, Titanic got the go-ahead for the 250,000 sq ft (23,225 sq m) light industrial first phase of Titanic Quarter, in the form of an extension to the Channel Commercial Park.
The 550,000 sq ft (51,095 sq m) Channel Commercial Park, an industrial and distribution centre, brings in £1.2m pa and is fully let.
Plans have been submitted for the other four phases of the redevelopment of the 185-acre (75ha) Titanic Quarter docklands site, a public/private partnership with the Belfast Harbour Commissioners.
Phase two, for which plans were submitted last October, will comprise a 150,000 sq ft (13,935 sq m) office block targeted at regional development agency (RDA) Invest Northern Ireland.
In April, plans were submitted for phases three to five:
200,000 sq ft (18,580 sq m) of B1 offices to be located on the Sydenham Works site at the Harland & Wolff Technology Park
11 acres (4.45ha) of car showrooms
450 flats to be built on the Abercorn site beside the Odyssey Centre, an indoor sports and leisure scheme
In February, Olsen received seven expressions of interest in a partnership deal involving Titanic Quarter, with an outright purchase being only of the options that potential partners were invited to consider.
The seven bidders came from Ireland, Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
Norway-based Olsen said that the sale is in line with its strategy of focusing on its core activities as a provider of exploration and production services to the offshore oil and gas industry.
Olsen remains the owner of the Northern Ireland-based shipbuilder and engineering firm Harland & Wolff.
Insignia Richard Ellis Gunne was the agent on the sale.
References: EGi News 18/06/03
