Fionn O’Dea | Senior Staff Writer
College has placed a bid on a property on Pearse Street in an attempt to provide for the ever-increasing numbers of students attending Trinity, as was revealed at the Trinity Global Graduate Forum earlier this month. Due to commercial sensitivity, however, no exact address or details of the bid have been announced. However, the college has divulged that the property will initially serve to accommodate activities that will need to be temporarily relocated to allow for the redevelopment of the Luce Hall site.
“The College does and will continue to consider acquisitions that will support its strategic objectives.”
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College Press Officer Caoimhe Ní Lochlainn revealed to The University Times that the proposed acquisition is still at negotiation stage though “the discussion on the acquisition of this particular property has taken place over recent months.” Should negotiations prove successful, meanwhile, the purchase would still be subject to the approval of the Board of the College.
Material provided at last week’s forum revealed that Trinity is on course to increase its student numbers to 18,000 by 2014. “If Trinity is to maintain a proportionate share of projected national participation rates, it will need to enrol 18,300 students in 2015 and 24,000 in 2030. Growth at this level will require significant investment in terms of staffing and infrastructure,” one report states. A mid-term review of College’s Stategic Plan 2009-14 revealed that not only is the overall target on course but the targets relating to increasing the number of graduate students and students from non-traditional backgrounds will be exceeded.
“If Trinity is to maintain a proportionate share of projected national participation rates, it will need to enrol 18,300 students in 2015 and 24,000 in 2030.”
This would appear to indicate that, regardless of whether maintaining a proportional share of national participation rates is considered to be a priority by the college, acquisitions of more properties are likely to follow in the future. When asked about future acquisitions, Ní Lochlainn said that “the College does and will continue to consider acquisitions that will support its strategic objectives.” In terms of replicating the use of suburban sites such as Trinity Hall and Santry Sports Grounds, she revealed that “College would consider any location that is appropriate for the proposed usage. Distance and accessibility would be factors to be considered in consideration of such potential acquisitions.”
Attendees at last week’s forum were asked to consider College’s inevitable increase in size in the context of a number of potential future scenarios, including: staying at the current size and promoting an ‘elite’, high-value model; growing by setting up overseas activities – campuses abroad, or partnerships with universities or corporates, or both; growing by building on the ‘old campus’ in College Green; and growing by expansion in the city (with aggressive purchasing of city centre properties, or a suburban campus).
Ever-increasing property prices in Dublin, meanwhile, are not a factor in the timing of the proposed purchase. Figures released by the Central Statistics Office in September revealed that property prices rose by 10.6% in Dublin over the previous 12 months. Ní Lochlainn claimed, however, that “the current proposal is related to a specific requirement, and is not driven by property values.”
