The Sheridan Group and Forte Hotels have announced plans for a new £16 million hotel close to the centre of Belfast. The 170-bedroom Posthouse, which will be built on Ormeau Avenue, is expected to open in the year 2000. It will replace Forte's existing 82-bedroom hotel in Dunmurray, in the south of the city.
The new hotel will be run as part of a multi-use development which will include offices, residential apartments and a leisure centre. Sheridan Group chairman Mr Peter Curistan said that his company had been working on the plan for the past four years.
"Our agreement with Forte," he said, "completes the planning process."
Forte Posthouse managing director, Mr Patrick Dempsey, said that the company has spent more than £60 million revitalising the 82-strong Posthouse group, and he said that the new Belfast Posthouse would be a flagship for the chain.
"In the past six years," Mr Dempsey added, "there has been a 20 per cent growth in the number of commercial and leisure visitors to Northern Ireland, and more than £1 billion has been invested by externally-owned companies in the past two years."
The Sheridan Group was set up in 1989 to develop what it describes as integrated urban entertainment and leisure centres in the UK and the Republic. It opened the first of these in Belfast in 1993. The Forte Hotel Group has a network of 260 hotels in more than 50 countries under the brand names Le Meridien, Posthouse, and Heritage.
