CastleCourt

CastleCourt is a shopping centre on Royal Avenue in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is Northern Ireland's third largest shopping centre after Victoria Square and Rushmere Shopping Centre in Craigavon. As of 2007, it had approximately 16 million visits a year, and sale densities ranked in the top 10% in the UK.

History
The centre was built by John Laing on the site of the former Grand Central Hotel. The nature of the development made it a target for the Provisional IRA: the centre was bombed five times during its construction, four times after it opened, and suffered incendiary bomb attacks. It is now the third largest shopping complex in Northern Ireland after the construction of the new Victoria Square shopping centre, which is also located in Belfast, and Rushmere Shopping Centre in Craigavon.

The centre was brought by the Westfield Group and MEPC plc (later with Hermes Retail Estate) in 2000, renaming it Westfield CastleCourt. Westfield sold its share of the centre fully to Hermes Retail Estate in 2012, effectively renaming it back to just CastleCourt.

In 2021, a multi-plan development was announced for the former Debenhams, a store that opened with the centre in 1990 and was their first store in the island of Ireland. The multi-plan development included a new cinema operated by Omniplex Cinemas called The Avenue, a new Starbucks (relocating from their former presence in the centre), New Look, the return of TK Maxx in the centre after moving to Donegal Arcade years ago and a leisure centre.