College Board has decided to change the name of Trinity Technology Enterprise Campus (TTEC) to Trinity East.
In an email to staff and students, Provost Patrick Prendergast said: “With this name Trinity paves the way for an eastward expansion of the college to encompass the campus at Grand Canal Dock as the home for new activities in education and research.”
Trinity has spent a number of years planning to develop TTEC in the Grand Canal Dock. Trinity East – a five and a half acre site – will be situated there, and bound by Pearse St, Macken St, the DART line and Grand Canal Quay.
On November, College announced that it had submitted the planning application for its proposed Innovation Hub.
It is billed as a space for entrepreneurs, academics, early stage start-ups and innovation teams to convene.
The Innovation Hub will include a new public square with a cafe and seating as well as a landmark tower that dates back to 1862 when the area housed a sugar refinery.
The development of the Innovation Hub will allow College to move forward with its plans for the Grand Canal Innovation District – approved by the government in January – including the establishment of Trinity East.
The project is central to the government’s plans to make the area a globally competitive centre for innovation and entrepreneurship.
The state is likely to invest €150 million in the ambitious project over the next decade.
Varadkar first announced the plans for developing Grand Canal Dock into an innovation district in 2018.
Back in May, Dr Diarmuid O’Brien, College’s chief innovation and enterprise officer, said that he was“very optimistic” that the million-square-ft plan for Grand Canal Dock was still viable, despite the implications of the virus.
O’Brien said College’s plans for the project – expected to span 10 years – “needed to be robust enough to go through at least one, if not two economic cycles”.
“We knew that over the life-cycle of this project we definitely would have had to deal with a recession or a kind of economic challenge, and so we were always preparing with that potential eventuality in mind.”
“We need to work with the new government to build on the momentum that had been achieved”, O’Brien said. “Making this a priority for the government needs to be worked on.”
The Grand Canal Innovation District will be located in Dublin’s “silicon docks” alongside international corporations such as Google and Facebook. It will be modelled on districts in cities like Boston, Toronto, Rotterdam and Barcelona.
The site will contain a combination of new institutes and innovation centres as well as a research institute as part of the E3 project. College also hopes to locate student accommodation on the site, aimed at postgraduate students.
