Plans to develop a new campus for Dublin Institute of Technology at Grangegorman in Dublin.
More than 25 companies have applied to design a new college campus for the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) on the 80 acres of St Brendan's Grangegorman Psychiatric Hospital.
St Brendan's Hospital Grangegorman is being described as the last great development opportunity in Dublin city.
DIT Aungier Street is tipped as one of the first colleges to be moved to the new campus if the plan gets the go ahead. However, it could be 10 years before the DIT has sold its 39 sites around the city and moved to the new campus. The Grangegorman site will also include a primary healthcare centre,
John Fitzgerlad of the Grangegorman Development Agency says this is the last urban centre to be developed as a centre for one of the biggest colleges in town.
It will eventually become a town in its own right.
Local residents are concerned that there is not enough infrastructure in place to cater for over twenty thousand students moving into the area. Pirooz Daneshmandi of the Grangegorman Residence Alliance says,
Our concerns are that we are going to be overwhelmed.
Residents are also worried that the extension of the Luas line will not arrive until at least 2012, two years after it is planned that the first students arrive on campus.
The entire development could cost up to €2 billion with the government contributing about a quarter of the cost.
An RTÉ News reports on 17 April 2007. The reporter is John Kilraine.
