Plans approved for €500m DIT campus
An Bord Pleanala has given the go-ahead for the new Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) campus at Grangegorman in Dublin.
The €500m plan, which will see the existing 39 DIT colleges centralised on the one site, has been in the works for 10 years.
The 75-acre development will also house a healthcare centre and a primary school at the site of the former St. Brendan's psychiatric hospital.
The development is the first to be approved as a Strategic Development Zone (SDZ) in Dublin city.
The college said it will ultimately bring over 20,000 students and staff to the campus.
President of DIT, Professor Brian Norton said: “DIT is part of the fabric of Dublin city and we work closely with the communities around us. It is very important to us that our new campus will not only provide a leading edge educational environment for DIT students, but that it also contributes to the development of the city and its economy. Our primary role is to develop graduates who will contribute to building Ireland’s future and this news is very positive for our future graduates.”
The proposals contains plans for three buildings of between 12 and 15 storeys in height.
However An Bord Pleanala says separate planning permission will have to be sought for these because of their potential impact on Dublin's city skyline.
Work is currently underway on construction of new mental health facilities on the North Circular Road side of the site and this is due to be finished by the end of this year. The next scheduled ‘new build’ will be the PRTLI-funded Environmental Health Sciences Institute (EHSI) and a design team has just been appointed. EHSI is a DIT-led initiative, in collaboration with Dublin City Council and the HSE, which aims to ‘develop practical solutions to environmental health problems’.
The Grangegorman Development Agency (GDA) said now that it has planning permission it plans to push ahead with securing finance for the project.
The agency's CEO Michael Hand said the campus would provide much needed facilities in the area.
For further information see http://www.dit.ie/about/grangegorman
