The 115,000 sq ft Halifax headquarters office building in Belfast’s Gasworks site has been put on the open market for £7.5 million.
It comes after the Lloyds Banking Group revealed in February that it plans to relocate its 1,600 staff to two floors at the new Paper Exchange office development on Belfast’s Chichester Street later this year.
Agents CBRE has been engaged to sell the five-storey building, which benefits from an adjoining 122-space multi-storey car park.
But it comes at a time when demand for office space in the city is falling as increasing numbers of companies implement flexible working policies and hybrid work has flourished.
Earlier this year, the owners of 57,000 sq ft Klondyke Building in the Gasworks business park, not too far from the Halifax, were forced to knock £2 million off the asking price.
It was originally marketed for £10m in 2022 but was placed on the market for £8m in the middle of 2023, but is currently looking at offers of around £6m.
It is leased to the Department of Finance and is the base for the NI Environment Agency, which is due to vacate the building in October and move to another government site.
It comes as the NI Civil Service implements a plan to slash its office estate by 40% over the next four years.
But according to research by CBRE, the take-up of office space in Northern Ireland during the first three months of this year was 48% higher than the same period in 2023.
Its research said there were 18 office deals completed over the period, with the three largest deals accounting for just over 52% of total take-up and the remainder of deals at 7,000 sq ft or less.
Overall investment transaction volumes in commercial property in the region during the first quarter of 2024 were just over £54 million, it added.
