Belfast Transport Hub to be called Grand Central Station

Grand Central Station is due to open in 2025

Belfast's new bus and train station has been officially named Belfast Grand Central Station.

Previous known as the Belfast Transport Hub, the station in south Belfast is currently being built and is due to open in 2025.

Translink revealed the name on Thursday.

Grand Central Station will replace the current bus and train stations at the Europa bus station and Great Victoria Street.

Last year Translink said work on the £200m flagship project was on schedule, as work continued throughout the pandemic.

When the project was announced in 2019, Translink said the project would create 400 new jobs.

It said the new hub will be the main "transport gateway to Belfast", improving rail, bus and coach connectivity across Northern Ireland.

It will feature 26 bus stands, eight railway platforms, cycle and taxi provisions and the capacity to welcome more people, in order to cater for about 14m passenger journeys each year.

The existing stations currently support eight million each year.

It's hoped the project will also help reduce carbon emissions as well as providing an economic boost.

The hub is being built behind the current Europa bus centre/Great Victoria Street railway station

Popular namesake

It will not be the first time the Grand Central name has been used in Belfast.

The first Grand Central Hotel was opened on Royal Avenue in June 1893 by Downpatrick man John Robb.

He had originally planned to develop a massive central railway terminus on the site, based on New York's famous Grand Central Station, but he failed to get the backing from local politicians.

The old Grand Central Hotel, seen here in 1980, served as an Army base during the Troubles

In later year it was taken over by whiskey distiller John Grant and hosted many famous guests and celebrities from Sir Winston Churchill, to The Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

It closed its doors in 1969 as the Troubles broke out and it was later taken over by the Army in 1972 for use as a base.

The building was attacked many times and when it was no longer required by the Army, it was demolished in the late 1980s.

The site is now home to the Castle Court shopping centre.

A new Grand Central Hotel opened in Bedford Street in 2018 at the former Windsor House office block.

Meanwhile the station formerly known as Belfast Central was renamed Lanyon Place in September 2018.

On Twitter, Translink said it was celebrating the Belfast Transport Hub's new name with "community engagement", through its "Grand" story board at Europa Bus Centre.

Its aim is to celebrate everything grand about Northern Ireland's and innovations.