A SOCIAL enterprise, which helped revitalise one of Belfast's biggest vacant retail sites is to finish up this weekend.
Titanic Media Group, the team behind T13, formally based in the Titanic Quarter, took on the former B&Q warehouse on Boucher Road back in spring 2017 as part of the Social Enterprise South13 (S13) project.
Now after two years of events, youth programming and social enterprise incubation S13 will end its association with the B&Q building this weekend as it hosts the fifth year of the critically acclaimed AVA Festival.
Titanic Media Group director, Gary Flynn said:
"For over a decade we have been uncovering some of the opportunities presented by deindustrialisation and a general shift towards knowledge, leisure, community and service based industries in cities like Belfast."
"Through a process of consultation and collaboration with the relevant parties and an appreciation of the overarching Belfast agenda, we have taken the opportunity to influence some of the most significant regeneration programs in the city, while developing our own unique concept of Shared Space, as demonstrated through S13 and T13 in recent years," he added.
S13's departure comes as the pre-development phase work at the the Boucher Road site have now been completed. This is expected to pave the way for discount retailer The Range to open a new 65,000 sq ft superstore and garden centre later this year.
In a statement in January the company said it was set to take on the Boucher Road site.
"We can confirm that we have exchanged on the old B&Q site in Boucher Road and are hoping to open a store there later in the year," a spokesperson said.
The AVA Festival, which takes place today and tomorrow, features some of the best international and local electronic DJ's and visual artists across four stages. Last year’s festival was streamed to over 5 million people and that number is expected to be surpassed this weekend.
