€200m ‘Campus Masterplan’ Announced for LIT
Limerick Institute of Technology (LIT) has announced a significant stimulus for the Limerick and Mid-West region’s economy with the unveiling of its €200m+ ‘Campus 2030 Masterplan’.
The Masterplan, launched by Minister Jan O’Sullivan at LIT’s Limerick School of Art & Design (LSAD) city centre campus today, is in response to growth across LIT discipline areas such as art and design, engineering and humanities. It also reflects the expansion in LIT’s Enterprise Centres and the applied research capabilities, which were not part of the original masterplans when the campuses were developed during the late 1990s.
The investment will see an additional 50,000sq metres of facilities of new facilities as well as extensive refurbishment of existing facilities.
It will be invested across LIT’s four existing campuses: its Moylish Park headquarters; LSAD (Clare Street, Limerick); its LIT Tipperary campus in Thurles and Clonmel – as well as a new 7,000sq metre new campus at Coonagh, Limerick.
The three Limerick campuses will be renamed after the ancient kingdoms of Munster – Desmond (City Centre), Thomond (Moylish) and Ormond (Coonagh) – where LIT draws the vast majority of its students.
The Masterplan will amount to the most significant expenditure by a third-level institute outside of Dublin over the coming decades, with the overall investment set to be a key element of the city’s reinvigoration. The €20m ‘Phase One’ of the programme will commence next year and comprise the development of the new Irish Fashion Incubator enterprise centre; the reinvention of an existing 7,000 sq building as the centrepiece of the new Ormond campus; major refurbishment of existing campuses and development of sports facility infrastructure on multiple sites. Many of these facilities will be developed in conjunction with partners.
Other key elements of the project to follow will include LIT’s first student villages for the Ormond and Desmond campuses , as well as an integrated ‘DOT’ (Desmond, Ormond, Thomond) transport system.
Bernice Barrington