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Fanum House: Derry developer drops apartment plan in favour of £55m student accommodation block

Fanum House is often been labelled as one of Belfast's ugliest buildings.
Fanum House is often been labelled as one of Belfast's ugliest buildings.

A Co Derry developer has dropped plans to build an apartment tower on the site of a vacant Belfast office building, and will instead pursue a £55 million student accommodation scheme on the same site.

South Bank Square originally proposed building a 14-storey hotel on the Fanum House site, close to Shaftesbury Square.

The Maghera-based company changed its plan in December 2020 in favour of a £45 million ‘build-to-rent’ scheme involving around 210 apartments.

The developer has changed its mind again, announcing a fresh bid to demolish Fanum House and build 610 student units on the site.

South Bank Square (SBS) notified Belfast City Council of its new plan on Tuesday.

Built in 1965, the 11-storey brutalist office tower was previously used as the Belfast-base for RTE and The Irish Times.

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The paper’s columnist Frank McNally, who previously worked from Fanum House, recently labelled it “the ugliest building in Belfast”.

SBS acquired the Fanum House site in 2011 in a deal overseen by the Republic’s National Asset Management Agency (Nama), one of the bad bank’s first major deals in the north.

It’s understood the company paid between £4m and £5m for the site. 

The developer initially pressed ahead with the plans developed by the former owner to build two hotels.

SBS went on to build the ETAP Hotel on the Dublin Road and secured planning permission for a second hotel in 2012.

The ETAP hotel was placed on the market last month with an asking price of £7.175m.

SBS is the latest firm to drop its initial development plan in favour of a student accommodation scheme.

Office builds on Grosvenor Road and Smithfield Market have recently been abandoned in favour of residential units for students.

The Fanum House site is also surrounded by projects at various stages of development. 

The recently opened 269-unit Vita Student building is just around the corner, while Queen’s University has announced plans for 469 student units on the former Movie House cinema site on Dublin Road

A new student block is also being built over the rail line at Bradbury Place by Dublin investment house Elkstone.