Sunday 12 July 2009

€50m project for St Patrick’s College

St Patrick’s teacher training college has been given the go head for a major campus development project expected to cost €50 million. Minister for Education & Science Batt O’Keeffe is to announce tomorrow that the project for St Patrick’s College of Education in Drumcondra, Dublin, can go to tender.

Building work should begin next year on the project, which includes 18 new lecture theatres, two new libraries and offices. Funded by the National Development Plan, the project will result in all the college’s 2,400 students being based at the Drumcondra campus. Currently, there are 1,500 students at the north Dublin campus.

The Department of Education said the project was given the go-ahead following a rigorous government appraisal which applied to all proposals for large-scale building projects in higher education.

It was also the subject of a detailed cost-benefit analysis, ‘‘which robustly validated the underlying need for investment’’, a spokesman said.

‘‘This project will transform the campus in St Patrick’s College of Education and bring its facilities to a new level of state of the-art modernity,” said O’Keeffe.

‘‘Eighteen new lecture theatres will replace temporary prefabricated units and two new libraries will end cramped conditions for students.”

The project, located to the rear of the existing buildings, will also include specialist teaching areas and extra seminar rooms. The college’s existing stock of buildings dates from the 1800s, with some additions having been made during the 1960s and 1970s.

‘‘The campus development plan will radically modernise St Patrick’s and I’m delighted to be in a position to announce the move,” said O’Keeffe.

Sunday Business Post

www.buckplanning.ie

No comments: