Trinity has hit pause on a €1.5 million refurbishment of Áras an Phiarsaigh – designed to house staff hired for College’s Engineering, Environment and Emerging Technologies (E3) Institute – as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
The refurbishment was 60 per cent completed before the closure of the College, according to Bursar Veronica Campbell, and will see existing office space redecorated and a design lab built in the building.
In an email to The University Times, Campbell said the overall budget for the project – approximately €1.5 million – includes construction costs, fit-out, professional fees and internal resources.
Work will resume on the project when the government permits indoor construction work, she said.
Documents submitted by Trinity as part of the tender process show the refurbishment involves works to the third and fourth floors of the building, with new partitions and lights and an expansion of an existing common room in the building.
Construction of the E3 Institute itself – part of a flagship College project that in 2018 received the largest philanthropic donation in the history of the state – has also suffered delays as a result of the closure, and is now unlikely to open before 2023, Campbell told The University Times last month.
Construction of the six-storey building started earlier this year and was previously expected to be completed in 2022.
The new building will facilitate an increase of one third to the number of STEM students, with an additional 1,800 places being created.
Phase one of the project – the demolition of the biochemistry building – has already been completed. Phase two – further demolition of areas surrounding the zoology building – has been put on hold indefinitely.
“We are just thinking through how best to tackle that at the moment as that work cannot begin as no one can access the site”, Campbell said.
Earlier this year, The University Times reported that Trinity made dramatic cutbacks to plans for the E3 Institute after a sharp decline in projected student income over the coming decades.
Confidential documents presented to College Board in November, obtained by The University Times, revealed major changes to the institute’s business plan, with projected costs down more than €55 million over a 30-year period.
The figures showed a number of miscalculations in the previous business plan, approved by the College Board in February 2018, with an €85 million drop in expected student income – down from €659 million to €573 million.
