Ireland’s tallest commercial building, Windsor House, sold to hotel operators Hastings Group

HOTEL owners the Hastings Group has bought Belfast’s Windsor House, the tallest commercial building in Ireland, for £6.5 million.

The new owners have said they are planning to turn the city centre office block into a hotel that would create 150 jobs in the hospitality industry.

The group already owns six hotels in Northern Ireland, including the Europa.

Its directors said they intend to submit a planning application “within a few weeks”.

The 22-storey building on Bedford Street had been placed on the market last year, with a minimum asking price of £5 million.

The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) in Dublin had taken control of the building in 2012, after its previous owners, Lauderdale Properties, went into administration.

Before the property crash, Lauderdale had plans to convert the building into apartments, after buying Windsor House for £30m in 2006.

In a statement on Monday, the directors of Hastings Hotels said their redevelopment of Windsor House “will be a major construction project, and will be very much welcomed by the Northern Ireland building industry”.