With only four months until the opening of the Grand Central Hotel in Belfast, Hastings Hotels has compiled seven things you didn’t know about the construction of Northern Ireland’s largest hotel.
“The Grand Central Hotel represents the single biggest project that Hastings Hotels has ever undertaken,” said Julie Hastings, Marketing Director of Hastings Hotels. “The construction process has been very exciting for the group as a whole and we’ve been able to use our collective experience to create something very special for Northern Ireland.”
Hoping to give the public a little insight into the sheer size of the hotel, and the massive task of transforming the 1974 office block into a 23-storey luxury destination in Belfast, the team have put together seven facts in the run up to the grand opening later this year.
A Goliath job
840 tonnes of concrete were removed from the old façade of Windsor House for recycling. This is the same weight as the maximum lifting load of the Samson and Goliath cranes
Great Scott
560 tonnes of new steel were used for the structure, this is equivalent to 455 DeLorean DMC-12 cars, the model famously used for Doc Brown and Marty McFly’s time machine in the 1985 film Back to the Future.
Peak engineering
There will be 1,280 doors which is a total height of 2,688 metres and is equivalent to three Slieve Donard mountains.
Long stay
The total length of plasterboard sheets being used is 46,800 metres, this is equivalent to the height of 980 Europa hotels
Try hard
The total amount of new concrete used has a combined weight of 1,810 tonnes, this would be the equivalent to over 1,200 Ulster Rugby teams.
Going the distance
310 miles of new electrical cables is being used, which is just over the length of Ireland.
Not quite under the radar
A flight path into Belfast City Airport had to be adjusted to accommodate the 475 feet tall Tower Crane which was used to support the initial construction work of the hotel
