Citigroup is redrawing its Titanic Quarter headquarters.
The US bank has lodged a planning application with Belfast City Council to cover the outdoor courtyard at The Gateway with a multi-level glass atrium. The courtyard is part of the complex Citi has occupied since 2009 and owned since 2019. The bank believes the open space is underused.
The overhaul would create around 19,000 sq ft of new campus-style space inside the building. Plans talk about breakout areas, collaboration zones, health and wellbeing facilities and a cafeteria. Designers say the atrium would improve links between floors and give the office a more active centre.
It is not a push for more people at more desks. The Gateway is currently set up for about 1,650 workspaces. Hybrid working has kept average occupancy well below that. Citi plans to remove about 400 desks, taking the total to around 1,240, a cut of roughly 25%. Supporting documents say the aim is a more efficient, flexible workplace that encourages staff back in, not intensifying how the building is used.
Parking shifts with the same theme. Basement car spaces would fall from 95 to 79, with room for 80 bikes and upgraded showers and changing rooms for people cycling in.
Citi employs around 3,700 people in Northern Ireland and is one of the region’s biggest private-sector employers. Buying The Gateway in 2019 locked the Titanic Quarter site in as its Belfast base. This planning bid is the next chapter of that commitment, shaped for a hybrid office rather than a packed trading floor.
Nothing is approved until Belfast City Council decides.
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