Around 23,000 real estate and property development professionals from 90 countries are attending MIPIM this week. So too is Our Man in Cannes
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:: So, night one at MIPIM went to plan, very good dinner, big crowds in the bars and late to bed, pretty standard really. The Belfast welcome dinner was opened by City Council chief executive Suzanne Wylie who reflected on a great first day - particularly the appearance of Mark Huffman who, I hope, you have looked up by now (following my prompt yesterday).
Councillor Graham, looking very French in her blue horizontal striped dress, welcomed everybody and said how positive it had all been on day one. Then we had Tyrone's finest, Gary McCausland, chief executive of the Richland Group, telling his story about how he'd gone to London, worked hard and was now very glad to be back home developing a very smart apartment block on the Dublin road with only five left to sell.
Gary's next big project is an immense office development on the site of the existing cinema, also on the Dublin road. Offices are the big asset class that everybody is talking about here at MIPIM. What does that mean? Well, the recession is over (despite fears over Brexit) and Belfast's inward investors, existing and potential, are in need of high quality office space. Currently, that space is in very short supply so the race is on among local developers to get the planning, funding and tenants to actually build new office space in the city centre.
The dinner was wound up by Councillor McGimpsey who was also charged with running a little quiz including questions about some of our more famous sons CS Lewis, George Best and Chris McGimpsey himself, bien sur!
:: Wednesday started the way you would expect a Cannes day to begin, in blazing sunshine. Jackets off, sunglasses on. It was all business at the Belfast stand however. There were some big presentations. Chris Conway, chief executive of Translink, revealed the name of the new transport hub which will transform the bottom end of Sandy Row as it meets Glengall Street. The massive scheme which will become Belfast's new bus and rail centre is to be named Weavers Cross, he revealed in his presentation.
Stephen Surphlis was up next for McAleer & Rushe, presenting its new office scheme incorporating the beautiful listed Ewart headquarters building on Bedford Street. The new scheme, Bedford Square, will fill in the car park beside the Invest NI building.
Next up was James Eyre of Titanic Quarter presenting Olympic House, a new office scheme in a joint venture with Belfast Harbour Commissioners and then came Stephen Blaney of Coogan & Co architects presenting the major office schemes of Kilmona Developments. Damien Mitchell of Causeway Asset Management, which manages all of the Kilmona assets, then made a strident call for a developers' forum to push the city forward. A call that was then supported by Nuala Gallagher of the Council, who was chairing the session.
Last to present then was Jonathan Bethal of Chapman Taylor architects. He presented the latest iteration of the scheme formerly known as Royal Exchange.
All in all it was a busy session and if and when it all gets built, it will add well over £2 billion of investment and probably two million sq feet of new space in Belfast. Big numbers, but that's MIPIM for you, plus ca change, c'est la vie.
