Uncertainty abounds over the fate of the Business School plaza, with questions unanswered over the long-term future of the Simon Perry building – the home of the College’s School of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering.
Plans to demolish the Simon Perry, a “specialised research building” that houses the school, were put on hold in 2016 after no temporary home for the school could be found.
It was decided at the time that the school would remain where it was until College’s new Engineering, Environmental and Energy Institute (E3) is complete.
In an interview with The University Times, Dr Roger West, an associate professor at the School of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, said: “Currently, there is no plan to move the Simon Perry building because it is a specialised research building with academic offices and postgraduate space, and two small lecture theatres. Those places are not being replaced in the new E3 building, per se.”
As a result, West said, “there are no specific plans” for the school to relocate to Trinity’s Technology and Enterprise Campus (TTEC), “as far as we are aware”.
West said there is a plan to move the activities that currently take place one room in the Simon Perry – used for undergraduate teaching – into the E3 buildings, but said there are currently no plans in place to replace the building.
Responding to questions from The University Times about the future of the plaza and the Simon Perry building, Trinity’s bursar Veronica Campbell said that “the plans for the Business School plaza have not been shelved”.
“However”, she continued, “the plaza cannot be completed until the Simon Perry has been demolished and that will require an alternative location for the activities that take place in the building to be finalised”.
Campbell told The University Times in 2016 that there had been a “misalignment of timing between the progress of the Business School and E3”. She also said that the Simon Perry Building would not be demolished before the summer of 2018.
As the E3 project had not been finalised in 2016, the demolition of the building could not go forward “until we had a solution for where the School of Engineering activity would go”, she said.
Board records from 2015 show that planning permission was submitted to Dublin City Council for the demolition of several buildings surrounding the proposed location of the new Business School on Pearse St. External reports on Dublin County Council’s website dated from the same year show that these plans include the demolition of the Simon Perry building.
But at a meeting of Finance Committee in October 2019, members “approved a change request to reassign funds set aside in the budget for the demolition of the Simon Perry building to meet current project expenditure” of the Business School’s Tangent Innovation and Entrepreneurship Hub.
The Simon Perry building was first constructed 26 years ago, and was officially named on May 4th 2012 in honour of Prof Simon Perry, who served as chair of the Civil Engineering faculty between 1986 and 2002.
The projected completion date for the E3 building is 2022.
