23 Stories 7 – Seven quirky facts you didn’t know about Grand Central Hotel Belfast

WITH only four months until the opening of the Grand Central, Hastings Hotels has put together seven quirky facts about the construction of Northern Ireland’s largest hotel.

Julie Hastings, Marketing Director of Hastings Hotels said: “The Grand Central Hotel represents the single biggest project that Hastings Hotels has ever undertaken. 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.

“To give people an insight into the sheer scale of the Grand Central Hotel, we have put together a list of quirky facts which we hope will give people an idea of the massive task of transforming a 23-storey office block which was built in 1974, into a stunning hotel which will command the skyline of Belfast and bring a new era of modern luxury to the city,” Julie added.

Seven quirky facts about the Grand Central Hotel:

·      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

·      560 tonnes of new steel were used for the structure, this is equivalent to 455 DeLorean DMC-12 cars

·      There will be 1,280 doors which is a total height of 2,688 metres and is equivalent to three Slieve Donard mountains

·      The total length of plasterboard sheets being used is 46,800 metres, this is equivalent to the height of 980 Europa hotels

·      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

·      310 miles of new electrical cables is being used, which is just over the length of Ireland

·      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