The Fullan family has received planning approval from Belfast City Council to convert offices at 27-31 Donegall Street and 3-5 Commercial Court into a 25-room boutique hotel and bar. The conversion adds hotel supply in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter without changing the height or scale of the existing building.

The applicant is Sessia Ltd, led by the Portglenone-based Fullan family, which is best known for retail, including a large supermarket and department store. Adrian Fullan’s Black Rock Hotels owns the Leighinmohr House Hotel in Ballymena and Gray’s in Bushmills, a 17-bedroom boutique hotel that opened in 2024.

The hotel will have entrances on both streets and a ground-floor bar and restaurant opening onto Commercial Court. The first and second floors will each have 11 bedrooms, with the remaining three on the third floor, and photovoltaic panels will be installed on the roof.

Numbers 27 and 29-31 Donegall Street were combined into one building by a previous owner and are currently offices, while 5 Commercial Court is a vacant office space. Commercial Court is one of Belfast’s busiest streets for pub trade, home to the Duke of York and its colourful umbrella display.

The application says the “height, scale, massing, proportion, plot width, building lines, rhythm and roofscape remain as per the existing building”, and that there will be “no impact upon built or natural heritage”. It places the site in the commercial heart of the city centre, close to four other hotels.

The structural driver is office-to-hotel conversion within the existing building envelope, which keeps the massing unchanged while altering the facades for new windows, doors and fixtures and changing the use of the space.

Material submitted with the application says the hotel will “create an attractive and sustainable place to stay and socialise” and “further enhance the 24-hour economy of Belfast City Centre”.

The hotel arrives as the neighbourhood draws national attention. Time Out ranked the Cathedral Quarter second in its 2026 list of the coolest neighbourhoods in the UK, behind only Govanhill in Glasgow.

For the sector, the approval shows office buildings in prime hospitality districts being fitted out as boutique hotels rather than left as offices.

Source: Belfast Telegraph / Irish News / Plan Belfast / Time Out