10-storey office extension planned by Kinler Properties

A Dungannon-based property firm has announced plans for a major extension of a Belfast city centre office block.

Kinler Properties wants to add a 10-storey extension to the back of 40 Linenhall Street as well as adding two storeys to the existing building.

It also plans to develop a vacant site next to the building which, according to the planning application, it does not yet own.

The development would increase the floorspace of the building from 4,000 square metres to over 12,000 square metres.

Kinler Properties is controlled by developers John Curran from Dungannon and Kieran Haughey from Cookstown.

Last week, it was confirmed that the law firm Allen and Overy would be renting all the available office space in the Obel office development in Belfast.

However, some major office projects developed in the city during the property boom have still to find tenants, notably the Soloist and Lanyon Towers.

Other projects which have received planning permission have not been built.

Earlier this month property consultants CBRE claimed Belfast was facing a "severe shortage" of so-called grade A offices, that is recently built, high specification offices.

Last year, the owners of Belfast Titanic Quarter development were granted planning permission for more than 55,000 square metres of offices with the condition that they can only be let to financial services companies.