Business advisory group Deloitte has been given the green light to turn vacant office space at Belfast’s recently refurbished Ewart building into a new street level café.
The office unit next to the Grand Central Hotel on Bedford Street has been unoccupied since the £85 million office development was completed by McAleer and Rushe in 2022.
The new café will be based at the listed former 19th century linen warehouse on Bedford Street, which is connected by a link bridge to the 17-storey high-rise development behind.
Deloitte is the largest tenant of the 210,000 sq ft office development, occupying five floors.
It said despite extensive marketing for the office space, no tenant has been found.
“The unit has remained vacant since April 2022. The reasoning behind this is that market interest for office accommodation within Belfast city centre has lessened since the outbreak of Covid-19.
“A large bulk of office employees that once worked from offices in the city centre choose to work from home now instead.
“It is therefore necessary for vacant office developments to find a suitable alternative use, which in this case is for a café.”
Deloitte said the café will primarily serve reheated soup, sausage rolls and pastries, while the kitchen will be used to make sandwiches.
It’s not clear if the hospitality offering will be opened to the general public.
Belfast City Council formally granted planning approval for Deloitte’s plans on Monday (September 2).
The new café comes just over a year after Flame relocated its restaurant on Howard Street to a new 120-seater space on the ground level of the Ewart office tower.
