UCC's proposed new €106m corporate city campus looks good for business
A 3-D image of UCC's proposed new business school on Copley Street Credit: G-Net 3D
As images of what the new CUBS will look like emerge, documents lodged with Cork City Council show that some residual land to the east of the former Brooks Haughton builders’ providers site may be used for student accommodation down the line.
While a temporary “pocket park” is planned initially for this portion of the site, it is considered “a future expansion area” under the masterplan for the Copley Street development, as outlined in the Architectural Design Statement by RKD Architects.
RKD Architects say that its team, together with UCC, “have looked at complimentary design options for the future development site” and that “these may include an expansion of the CUBS development, an academic building, or student housing”. Sketches of what a new student housing scheme might look like are included in the submission for planning permission for the CUBS development.
The proposed design of the CUBS itself is striking, consisting of a main six-storey L-shaped block with a strong masonry element, and to the north, along Copley Street, a “glassy atrium”. A riverside block to the west of the site will be smaller in scale, to fit in with the adjacent streetscape, and the same goes for a theatre block on Copley Street.
The CUBS premises will extend to 15,675 sq m and will include world-class facilities, including a 350-seater lecture theatre, teaching and research spaces and restaurant.
It’s expected to deliver a significant economic boost to the area by bringing over 4,500 students and 225 staff into the city centre every day.
Professor Thia Hennessy, Dean of CUBS, said it would bring a world class business school to Cork, with significant benefits for the city.
Mark Poland, Director of Buildings and Estates at UCC, said the project, part-funded by the HEA was “part of an ambitious capital programme planned by the University in line with its masterplan strategy”.
If the CUBS development gets the go-ahead, it will throw even more weight behind the ongoing rejuvenation of this section of the city, creating what the architects describe as “a landmark civic building” on the southern boundary of the city’s commercial core.
The new business campus will be directly across the river from the College of Commerce and close to the School of Music, as well as UCC’s Centre for Executive Education which opened in 2018 in the refurbished Savings Bank on Lapp’s Quay. It will create a third-level hub in an area that has been dominated by utilitarian agencies such as the city courts (redeveloped and extended in recent years at a cost of €35m); an extended City Hall and Anglesea garda station. The area is undergoing an uplift in hospitality too, with a new €30m Premier Inn set to open next summer across the quays, at Morrison’s Island, on the site formerly occupied by Moore’s Hotel, which seized trading in 2005.
There are plans also for a 103-bed aparthotel on nearby South Terrace, lodged with city council by Carra Shore, associated with the UK-based Kajani family, with a decision due on this application before Christmas. The same family are behind the Moxy Hotel on Camden Quay at the former Atkins/McKenzie building, used as a temporary circuit courthouse and then a centre for the arts.
Submissions on the CUBS planning application can be made until January 19, 2023, with the council setting a date for a decision to be issued on 9 February.
