Belfast hoping for Titanic change

The Waterfront Hall conference centre is part of Belfast's Laganside Development

By CNN's Tom Bogdanowicz

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (CNN) -- As Northern Ireland prepares for the next hurdle in the peace process -- election of a first minister for the power-sharing Assembly -- many Belfast business leaders will be keeping their fingers crossed.

Political stability could turn their projects into money-spinners.

Although the city is scarred by 30 years of sectarian violence, not all of the rubble here is the result of bombings and mortar attacks. Some of it provides the foundation of a development that's betting on peace.

In the same place where shipyard workers once built the Titanic luxury ocean liner, the Titanic Quarter company plans an even grander project, with a large science park, Titanic museum and more.

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"We will see restaurants, bars, a hotel as well, we will also see a significant element of residential development," says Rodney McCullough of Titanic Quarter.

The developers are hoping to create 10,000 jobs and attract $700 million in investment -- much of it from overseas. The catch is the political climate.

"With peace and stability we can plan with greater certainty for the future, we are much better placed to attract international investment," says McCullough.

Titanic Quarter is not the only Belfast project counting on stability.

Investors have poured more than a billion dollars into the Laganside Development -- which has changed the face of the city along the River Lagan with a science centre, arena, theatres, public spaces and riverside walks.

And Belfast, hoping to change its image, is bidding to be European City of Culture in 2008.

The Belfast skyline, with the cranes of the Harland and Wolff shipyard along the river

"There is a huge kind of untapped creative energy here in Belfast that is going to create an explosion of a different kind, I hope, in the next sort of six, seven years," says Shona McCarthy of Imagine Belfast 2008. But as cultural ambassadors and property developers know, violence still mars the streets of Belfast -- keeping many prospective visitors and investors at a distance.

"At the present time there's a very large risk premium with investment in Northern Ireland. Whether we like it or not, for a large part of the year Northern Ireland is closed for business while civil unrest continues," says Michael Smyth of the University of Ulster.

The Titanic, once dry-docked in Belfast, sank after colliding with an iceberg. The icebergs that now threaten Belfast's development are political instability and sectarian violence -- which is why the business community here is banking on further steps forward in the peace process.