CastleCourt

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CastleCourt
Castlecourt Shopping Centre - geograph.org.uk - 1305252.jpg
Outside CastleCourt in 2009
CastleCourt
Location Belfast, Northern Ireland
Coordinates 54°36′1″N5°55′53″W / 54.60028°N 5.93139°W / 54.60028; -5.93139
Opening date1990 [1]
OwnerWirefox
No. of stores and services77 [2]
No. of anchor tenants 1
Total retail floor area 31,121 m2 (334,980 sq ft) [3]
No. of floors2
Parking1600 [4]
Website www.castlecourt-uk.com

CastleCourt is a shopping centre on Royal Avenue in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is Northern Ireland's third largest shopping centre after Victoria Square and Foyleside in Derry. As of 2007, it had approximately 16 million visits a year, [3] and sale densities ranked in the top 10% in the UK. [3]

Contents

History

Inside in 2010 Castle Court, Belfast, July 2010 (09).JPG
Inside in 2010

The centre was built by John Laing on the site of the former Grand Central Hotel. [5] The nature of the development made it a target for the Provisional IRA: the centre was bombed five times during its construction, four times after it opened, and suffered incendiary bomb attacks. It is now the third largest shopping complex in Northern Ireland after the construction of the new Victoria Square shopping centre, [6] which is also located in Belfast, and Foyleside, [7] Derry.

The centre was brought by the Westfield Group and MEPC plc (later with Hermes Retail Estate) in 2000, renaming it Westfield CastleCourt. Westfield sold its share of the centre fully to Hermes Retail Estate in 2012, effectively renaming it back to just CastleCourt. [8]

In 2021, a multi-plan development was announced for the former Debenhams, a store that opened with the centre in 1990 and was their first store in the island of Ireland. The multi-plan development included a new cinema operated by Omniplex Cinemas called The Avenue, a new Starbucks (relocating from their former presence in the centre), New Look, the return of TK Maxx in the centre after moving to Donegal Arcade years ago and a leisure centre.

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References

  1. "Castlecourt Shopping Centre". www.mybelfast.co.uk. Archived from the original on 5 November 2002.
  2. Moen, David (8 October 2019). "CastleCourt Shopping Centre Belfast". www.castlecourt-uk.com.
  3. 1 2 3 "BELFAST - CASTLECOURT". westfield.com. Archived from the original on 19 October 2007.
  4. "Castle Court Shopping Centre". Archived from the original on 17 January 2008. Retrieved 21 January 2008.
  5. "Belfast's CastleCourt sold for £125m to Wirefox". BelfastTelegraph.co.uk. 29 July 2017. ISSN   0307-1235 . Retrieved 31 October 2023.
  6. Sharrock, David. "Belfast basks in new kind of boom; Confusion surrounds attempts to attract foreign investment but on the city's streets the tills are ringing in the benefits of peace". The Guardian , 14 December 1994.
  7. "Foyleside 'About us'". Archived from the original on 31 October 2006. Retrieved 11 December 2006.
  8. "CastleCourt". Future Belfast. 28 March 2016. Retrieved 27 April 2024.