Grocery retailer Lidl has acquired the Homebase retail site next to Forestside shopping complex, with plans to develop a brand new south Belfast supermarket.
The large retail space at Galwally is one of four Homebase sites in the north due to close this month.
It follows the DIY retail group’s collapse into administration in November.
The CDS Group, which owns The Range chain of stores, is understood to have acquired two Homebase sites at Cookstown and Bangor, while two others in Omagh and Derry have been acquired by Sainsbury’s.
The four remaining sites in Craigavon, Antrim and two in south Belfast, are due to close for good in the coming days.
The Belfast outlets include the Shane Retail Park site on the Boucher Road and the Galwally store, located in the Drumkeen Complex, opposite Michael and Lesley Herbert’s Forestside retail hub.
It’s understood Lidl has acquired the Homebase site from the Newry-based Rathbane Group, owned by well-known businessman Brian McConville and his family.
The value of the deal has not been disclosed, but property insiders suggest Lidl may have paid in the region of £7.5 million.
Both Lidl and Rathbane were contacted for comment.
The deal paves the way for the latest Lidl supermarket in the south of the city following the opening of its first south Belfast store last year.
Lidl opened its new Boucher Road site in mid-September.
Just three months later, the grocer cut the ribbon on a new store in Carryduff, its 43rd in Northern Ireland.
The new Co Down supermarket, located just four miles south of the Galwally site, is part of a £9m investment plan to bring a derelict retail park back to life in Carryduff after eight years lying empty.
Lidl also opened a new supermarket in Castlereagh in late 2022, two miles from the south Belfast site it has just acquired.
The development plans by the retailer come as Forestside’s new owners continue with a major revamp of the centre’s offering.
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Michael and Lesley Herbert, who bought the retail asset for £42m in September 2023, have already developed new food units at the Upper Galwally side of their site, with Nando’s and Popeyes among its new tenants.
The entrance to Lidl’s new property is located directly opposite the new hospitality units and Sainsbury’s Forestside store.
The Homebase site at the Drumkeen Complex is also located next door to Galwally House, the headquarters for the Provincial Grand Lodge of Down, the governing body for Co Down’s 143 masonic lodges.
