Stanley Dock plan developer revealed as Harcourt Developments, builder of new Titanic attraction in Belfast
The firm set to lead the transformation of Liverpool’s Stanley Dock area is behind the £7bn plan to revive Belfast’s run-down docklands wiuth a Titanic museum.
The Daily Post can today reveal that Irish-based Harcourt Developments is driving the £50m revival of Stanley Dock. It forms part of a wider £130m plan to breathe new life into north Liverpool, unveiled yesterday.
Harcourt is currently involved in building the Titanic Belfast, a Guggenheim-style museum and visitor attraction due to open next year to coincide with the centenary of the liner’s sinking.
It is a landmark building in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter development, which is located on a large brownfield site in the city’s harbour area, and takes in parts of Harland and Wolff’s historic shipyard.
Now the company plans to renovate Stanley Dock, in a scheme with apartments, bars, shops and a hotel.
Pat Power, development director for Harcourt, said: “For a long time, the tobacco warehouse has been a monument to the lack of investment in the area, but this funding will now be the trigger for major redevelopment in the North Docks, in the way in which Albert Dock was 20 years ago for the central docks area.”
It is the latest in a number of failed projects that had hoped to regenerate Stanley Dock.
In 2008, Kitgrove won planning permission for a scheme to create 900 flats in the three warehouses on the site, with 634 duplexes in the 14-storey tobacco warehouse.
Ian McCarthy, of Liverpool Vision, which has helped with the scheme said: “Harcourt’s proposal is to reduce the number of apartments from that really high figure of 900, down to something more like 300.
“It is a much smaller number of apartments with real live work-space.”
Because there is currently only 2.3m between each of the floors, alternate floors will be removed to create space. The Grade II-isted tobacco building is thought to be the largest brick building in Europe, but the site has been derelict for almost 50 years.
The dock system was designed by Albert Dock mastermind Jessie Hartley and built between 1850 and 1857, with the tobacco warehouse added in 1901.
The 200m-long, 50m-wide building caused a headache for architects because so little light made it to the centre.
“They do have a solution for the architectural challenges, and all indications are that they will get cracking next year,” said Mr McCarthy.
Harcourt is currently going through the process of securing revised planning permission for part of the scheme, which is expected to be delivered in two phases.
“Harcourt Developments have got a great track record, they are involved in the Titanic Quarter in Belfast,” added Mr McCarthy.
The plans form part of the North Liverpool City Fringe Employment and Investment programme, which won £25m from the Government’s Regional Growth Fund (RGF) on Monday.
In recent times, Stanley Dock has been used as the backdrop for Hollywood blockbusters Captain America and Sherlock Holmes.
[Image: Leeds Liverpool canal looking towards Eldonian village, Vauxhall]
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