PLANS worth £140 million to regenerate a former landfill site have been approved by Belfast City Council.
A 250-acre portion of Giant's Park, North Foreshore, will be transformed with a commercial leisure and mixed-use development under the proposals.
It is hoped that a £93m visitor attraction made up of four hubs – a welcome hub, a leisure and sports-innovation hub, an adventure hub and a theme-park hub – will completed by 2026.
The lease of two sites was also agreed for a proposed £27m data centre and a £20m anaerobic digestion facility to generate and export electricity from organic waste.
The plans were considered by the council's strategic policy and resources committee and ratified by full council last night.
Giant's Park, a former landfill, is the city's largest development site. Opened for business in May 2017, its name was inspired by the Cave Hill area's association with author Jonathan Swift's book Gulliver's Travels.
The site is already home to a £20m film studio complex.
UUP councillor Jim Rodgers, chair of the strategic policy and resources committee, welcomed the new proposals.
"I'm very much looking forward to seeing this area of the city really coming to life through our regeneration plans," he said.
"Not only does Giant's Park offer businesses excellent connectivity through our airports and motorways, there's the obvious additional benefit of being able to recruit from Belfast's strong skills and talent base."
He added: "By developing this vast site, we stand to gain jobs, visitors, and vital rates income which we can reinvest in Belfast."
The Giant's Park infrastructure project was part-funded by Invest Northern Ireland (£1.6m) and the European Regional Development Fund (£2.2m), under the European Sustainable Competitiveness Programme for Northern Ireland, along with investment from Belfast City Council.
