A MAJOR property group looks to have failed in a bid for £25m apartment scheme on the site of a former Belfast night club.
In March, The Benmore Group submitted an application to build 154 apartments along the River Lagan at the former El Divino venue close to the Hilton Hotel and Waterfront Hall.
The popular three-floor night club ran for six years in Mays Meadow before shutting down in 2017.
It had been placed on the market in October 2015 with a £1.75m price tag.
The Benmore Group, which is also involved in the £100m project to transform the Kings Hall site in Belfast into a healthcare village, claimed that its Laganbank proposal would involve 140 construction jobs over a 16 month construction phase.
The scheme provides for a mix of one, two and three-bedroom apartments in a complex ranging between nine and 15 storeys. The proposal also includes a ground floor retail unit.
But planning officials at Belfast City Council have submitted a report to the local authority’s planning committee, recommending refusing permission for the project.
They concluded that despite a series of meetings between the developer and officials, resulting in some amendments by Benmore, the developer has not been able to overcome the major obstacles flagged up by planning policy.
Chief among the concerns is the scale of the project. In a report sent to the council’s planning committee, city officials said: “The proposal would, if permitted, result in overdevelopment of the site due to its inappropriate scale, form, massing and design causing over-dominance and unacceptable damage to the character and appearance of the area.”
Other issues centre over a lack of parking provision and environmental concerns, chiefly the potential impact on air quality.
“While the scheme has seen some amendments in response to feedback, these amendments have been minimal and do not go far enough to address the concerns that have been consistently raised by the council,” states the report.
The document will go before Belfast City Council’s planning committee on Tuesday evening, where councillors will have the final say on the project.
