Titanic Signature Project

Posted on March 31, 2012 by

 

Titanic Belfast - opening 31 March 2012

Titanic Belfast 

  •  While I am in Edinburgh today, my friend Suzanne Wylie, Director of Health and Environmental Services of Belfast City Council, attended last night the Dinner to celebrate the opening of the Titanic Signature Project. She described the finished product was very impressive indeed. Having been unsuccessful in its bid for BIG Lottery Funding, CivicArts’ landmark scheme for redeveloping the historic shipyards had stayed resolutely afloat thanks to the steadfast enthusiasm of developers and regional government.

 As a local Belfast City Councillor for the area, I had emphatically underlined local confidence in Titanic Signature Project’s regenerative powers in late 2008, and the Council gave a unanimous vote to grant the scheme planning consent. On the 27th November 2008, First Minister Peter Robinson announced that the Northern Ireland Government had approved a £43.5 million funding package towards the £97 million development, to which the City Council added its own £10 million contribution.

The Titanic Signature Project slowly rose up from the slipways of Queen’s Island, like the bygone hulls of Harland & Wolff. CivicArts’ concept design has succeeded in uniting a diverse range of uses within a single shell, offering a cultural hub for Titanic Quarter that can sustain itself and the surrounding community. Having crafted a compelling form and narrative, CivicArts worked closely with Todd Architects in Belfast to develop the design in working detail, steering it through planning and paving the way for construction to begin.

With Todd Architects acting as lead consultants, Harcourt Construction began work in site 2009 with the stated aim of opening the main attraction in time the centenary of Titanic’s maiden voyage in April 2012. Predicted to attract up to 400,000 visitors each year, and creating around 600 jobs in its construction, the Titanic Signature Project is now firmly on course to become the principal leisure catalyst for Belfast’s new Titanic Quarter.

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