Belfast's newest hotel has officially opened its doors to the public in the city's fashionable Cathedral Quarter.

The renovated Four Corners site is now home to the capital's second Premier Inn, which was officially unveiled by Regeneration Minister Margaret Ritchie.

The space incorporates public art, which has been installed on the exterior of the building, complementing the ongoing investment into the area.

The historic Four Corners site had lay derelict for many years.

Located at the junction of Rosemary Street, North Street, Donegall Street and Bridge Street, Four Corners is considered the birthplace of Belfast, and appears in the first maps of the city dating from the 1600s.

Built in 1871 by Thomas Jackson, the facade of the Four Corners building has been maintained as part of the re-development which incorporates a 171-bedroom hotel, a 200 seater bar and restaurant, and a basement car park.

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International multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy Buro Happold provided building services engineering, cost consultancy and lighting technology for the project.

Their work included the revitalisation of the four-storey rendered Victorian building, featuring original windows with raised surrounds, colonettes with Corinthian capitals, along with raised pilasters, quoins and keystones.

Buro Happold has revived this Victorian landmark with innovative, but in-keeping, design solutions to ensure optimum energy efficiency.

This includes a constant pressure en suite extract system to ensure that extract ventilation only occurs in individual en suites when they are in use and additional features such as an impulse jet fan ventilation solution for the basement car park, and heat recovery hotel ventilation.

Barry Crozier, Buro Happold Associate and project leader, said: "It's been a real pleasure to work on such an iconic Belfast building and bring it back to the 21st century.

"The Buro Happold team has delivered an excellent result, where old meets new and works together perfectly – a beautiful building exterior which houses state of the art, energy conscious services internally."

See: £15m City Hotel Development Opens In Belfast

(PR/JM)