Trinity College Dublin opening Republic’s first privately funded academic building

Trinity College is just about to open what it claims is the Republic of Ireland’s first purely privately-funded academic building, our Dublin Development Plans Conference has heard. Dr Patrick Prendergast, the college’s Provost & President, told the event that the Trinity Business School is due to open in six months.

He said the school is ‘probably the first’ in Ireland to enjoy no public subsidy with two thirds of the €18m cost raised from philanthropic sources, including contributions from leading business people in the republic. The project, which has also been supported with lending from the European Investment Bank, will raise the profile of the business school.
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He also showcased the university’s Grand Canal Innovation District, which is located in Dublin’s Docklands, where many multi-national and technology companies are already sited.The proximity of companies like LinkedIn and Facebook could stimulate research which could in turn foster spin out companies, he said: “It brings together a critical mass of talent.”

He said that Ireland’s most venerable university is also renovating its oldest building the Rubrics, which dates back to the 1690s structure, after it had to be vacated owing to health and safety concerns.

University College Dublin’s planning to expand its total floorspace by a third to 400,000 sq m, under its estates strategy, its Vice President for Development Professor Michael Monaghan told the event. The additional 30,000 sq m of new academic buildings includes a ‘substantial project’ to increase the capacity of the university’s engineering and architecture schools as well as the renovation and redevelopment of two of the buildings in its Science Centre.

Monaghan said the university’s Newman building and Joyce Library, which date back to the 1970s, also both require rejuvenation.

He said the university wants to increase student numbers by 15% and recruit 500 additional faculty staff to restore an imbalance in staff-student numbers which has emerged since 2008.

And Monaghan said that the Dublin architecture practice Scott Tallon Walker had drawn up a concept design for a new University Club. Adjacent to the college’s O’Reilly Hall event space, the club includes a bar and a café that will cater for both the university and members of the public.

The new Dublin Airport Central office scheme could be an engine for the wider Irish economy, its development director told the event. The masterplan for the scheme allows for delivery of almost 75,000 sq m of commercial development on land next to Dublin Airport’s Terminal Two. The airport secured planning approval last year for around 42,000 sq m of office development, a 742-space multi-storey car park and a connecting bridge between the scheme and the terminal.

Lorcan Tyrell; Development Director at Dublin Airport Central, said that the scheme had created an entirely new asset class within the Irish real estate market. He said: “We’re not trying to attract thousands of call centre employees. We want to attract the higher echelons of decision-makers to collectively cluster in Ireland’s only Airport City. That will help them to create new opportunities and new ideas that will help them to grow and anchor them in Ireland going forward.”

Construction has now commenced the first phase of Airport Central, including the connecting bridge and the front two office buildings, which he said will be built to the US LEED sustainable building standard. Tyrell said the airport’s success in letting Aer Lingus’ former headquarters to ESB Internationals, which the company occupied last year, had been a ‘great first step’ in its development plans.

 

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