NIO Minister Ian Pearson is to set up a procurement process for a new headquarters building for Invest Northern Ireland in the Greater Belfast area.

It is envisaged that the new headquarters will provide quality, modern office accommodation which will also support the Modernising Government Agenda and provide valuable benchmarks for future public sector accommodation policies.

Mr Pearson said: “Invest NI needs to continue to harmonise and focus the activities of the former economic development agencies for Northern Ireland into a single, coherent organisation. For this to happen, bringing its component parts together on a single site makes good sense."

The plan is to follow this announcement with an outline design brief seeking expressions of interest for a wide array of options and approaches before deciding on a final tender specification and approach.

The Minister added: “Invest NI will be determining its precise requirements and will shortly be inviting expressions of interest against an outline brief and I am confident that developers will come up with imaginative solutions which will include a sharing of risk between the public and private sectors.”

Fabian Monds, Chairman of Invest NI, said: “For Invest NI to fulfil its potential as a customer-responsive and creative economic development agency, it needs to have an effective operational environment. A modern building, designed to facilitate team work and innovation, is indispensable to realising the objectives of our Corporate Plan.”

Since its establishment in April 2002, Invest NI has operated out of three main administrative sites – Chichester Street in Belfast city centre, Galwally in South Belfast and Lisburn – in addition to a number of regional offices. To service the needs of its employees, none of the buildings currently occupied by Agency staff is capable of fully accommodating the new organisation.

(GMcG)