A report by the Maze Consultation Panel on the future of the site of the former top security Maze Prison has recommended the development of a new national sports stadium on the site.
The report, which took two years to complete, recommends a new £55 million sterling multi-purpose 30,000 seat stadium which would host soccer, rugby and Gaelic games.
A new International Centre for Conflict Transformation is also planned for the site. It is hoped the development could lead to £1 billion of public and private investment.
Both nationalist and unionist members of the cross-party panel agreed the blueprint. Mr David Campbell, chairman of the Maze Consultation Panel, said: "For 30 years the prison has been a symbol of conflict, division and the worst days of Northern Ireland's history and troubles.
"We are now able to offer a vision that is a symbol of hope for the future."
Mr Pearson and his officials will now study the plans which could create up to 1,000 jobs. The most eye-catching feature of the ambitious scheme, involving both private and public sector funding, is for a purpose-built stadium.
Although it would cost almost £60 million to build, the panel has already studied how US sports franchises and top football clubs in Britain are turning to naming rights for crucial revenue.
Several blue chip firms have been approached about paying for a significant portion of the arena costs. It is proposed the centre would have links to Harvard and Boston Universities in America.
The plan allows for the retention of the prison hospital, where ten Irish republican prisoners, including Bobby Sands, died on hunger strike in 1981.
One of the H-blocks, as well as other buildings including the administration block would also be kept.
The 360-acre Co Antrim site of the former prison is where 38 IRA men shot their way out of the top security jail in September 1983 and where notorious loyalist leader Billy Wright was murdered by the INLA in 1997.
