374-378 Newtownards Road

Where?

54.59829148216993, -5.8926271512428805
BT4 1HG – Newtownards Rd./ Welland St.

Description of chosen place

The building has three ground floor retail units, a garage and one upper floor apartment. It’s been vacant for at least 15 years and has been left unmaintained. Fire damage to the property can be clearly seen in the Google Maps Photos (May 2014). Some remedial work has taken place on the building – the upper floor windows have been boarded up and the façade has been cleaned. Visually, the walls look structurally sound, but the roof has been damaged beyond repair. The upper floor windows are mostly missing and there’s no external windows/doors behind the shutters on the ground floor. The ground floor is in average condition but with the damaged roof the upper floor will have extensive damp, mould, and water damage.

What do you imagine the space could be?

I imagine bringing the building back to its former glory. Rather than renovation, I see restoration with some required modern touches that still hold true to what the building may have looked like back in the day. Bringing out the original Belfast Brick and giving the windows a hint of class with a Georgian Arch. It would be great to have accommodation on ground and first floor plans but to be realistic to the area and its needs and uses I would finish the ground floor with some lovely full height glass windows for retail units, while maintaining the first floor for some modern apartments.

Submitted by

Paul McVeigh

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Date

February 19, 2023

About the ‘Forgotten Spaces’ project

We added a competition element and public voting mechanism to the exhibition to encourage engagement over passive viewing. From this process, two submissions – Short Strand Green Wall and Donegall Street Car Park – were allocated the ‘top prize’ of £100, racking up well over 300 stars between them. A discussion event and prize giving was held on Wednesday March 22nd at the Europa Hotel. We were joined by Sean Dolan, Senior Development Manager, Belfast City Council and Seamus Connolly, Group Manager, Neighbourhoods, Regeneration and Sustainability, Glasgow City Council for discussion on methodologies and policies in place for ‘How to Regenerate Forgotten Spaces?’. In the continuing spirit of democracy the event audience got to vote to give special commendations for ‘inspiring our collective imagination’ to a further three entries from a shortlist – those selected were Clandeboyne Corner, Inner City Forest (east) and The Church at Fountainville Ave.

With Forgotten Spaces we were interested in derelict buildings, waste-grounds, and development sites in that limbo-state, not because we were trying to address the myriad of complexities about land ownership, access or regeneration but rather because we were trying to draw attention to the vast number of neglected, unloved and underused spaces of the city which seem to get forgotten or ignored in top-level conversations. Imagination is a muscle – you need to feed it, feed it with ideas from other places, people, positive news - hopefully this project is feeding your imagination.

We’re not sure what the next stage will be (or if there will be one) but are always open to discussion ideas. Get in touch if you think we can help you or you can help us.

Meadhbh McIlgorm, Project Curator

374-378 Newtownards Road

Where?

Description of chosen place

What do you imagine the space could be?

Submitted by

Date

Social

Contact

About the ‘Forgotten Spaces’ project