[5][6] According to architectural writer Marcus Patton (1993), in the mid-19th century, North Street mainly consisted of "small businesses, shoemakers and publicans, grocers and haberdashers, leather and iron merchants.

[2] The construction made use of high-end, luxurious materials, and according to Marie McHugh (1990), the arcade was not initially successful due to the high rent of shop units.

After the Belfast Blitz and World War II, and the loss of retail spaces elsewhere in the city, the arcade began to fill with shop owners and the building became a commercial success.

[3] During the 1990s, in part due to low rent prices for shop units, a number of artists and creative organisations made their home in the arcade.

These plans were reviewed by the Northern Ireland Department for Social Development (DSD) against their Regeneration Policy Statement (RPS) for Belfast city centre, published July 2003[15] and adopted April 2004, and found not to be meeting the required objectives of the document.

[17] The subsequent development proposals for the "Royal Exchange", later renamed "North East Quarter" and then "Tribeca Belfast", produced initially by Ewart Properties and then by new owner Castlebrooke Investments, met with strong opposition from local artists and heritage organisations such as the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society as they included either partial or full demolition of the North Street Arcade, rather than the potential restoration put forward by Option 2 of the masterplan.

On Donegall Street, a 3-storey façade has been built in an Art Deco style from granite and reconstructed stone, while on North Street the 4-storey façade[5] of the existing Victorian linen warehouse has been retained, in red brick and red sandstone, with the lower floors remodelled to suit the arcade.

The pre-existing Brookfield Linen Company building was designed by William Henry Lynn and was described by Patton (1993) as "an imposing Italianate five-storey seven-bay building with pedimented and rusticated doorcases groined out of the heavily tooled basement plinth, swags over first floor windows, and giant order Corinthian pilasters supporting a heavy cornice and piers between attic windows.