Dublin to gain nearly 1,900 student housing places

Almost 1,900 off-campus student accommodation places are due for completion in Dublin city centre by the start of the 2017 academic year, according to figures from Dublin City Council.

A €40 million student facility with 471 bed spaces has just been completed at the Digital Hub on Thomas Street by the Student Housing Company, part of Capital Management, and will be available for students from the start of this academic year.

However, a number of developers have given notice to the council that they have started work on student housing projects which will be completed over the course of the coming year, yielding almost 1,300 more bedspaces.

The next project due for completion is significantly smaller – a 13-bed facility on Parnell Square, which is due to be finished this month.

The project, which involves the conversion of a Georgian House on the square from offices, is also due to be ready for the start of this academic year.

Under construction

Four larger development are expected to be ready over the course of next year.

The next due for completion is a 49-bed development which is under construction at the corner of Wexford Street and Protestant Row, and is due to be finished next June.

The building will be close to several third-level institutions including the DIT colleges at Kevin Street and Aungier Street.

Not far from there in the city’s Tenters area in Dublin 8 much larger development is also due to be finished next June.

The €40 million project by Global Student Accommodation (GSA) is expected to provide 399 places for students in a seven-storey complex at a 2.5-acre former industrial site at Mill Street.

The two remaining sites, both due for completion in September 2017, will provide the greatest number of homes currently under construction for students.

Vacant site

In Dorset Street in Dublin 1, Student Housing Company is also undertaking €60 million project to provide 447 beds for students on a vacant site opposite the Maldron Hotel.

The complex will be less than 10 minutes’ walk from the planned new DIT Grangegorman campus.

The final site currently under construction is another GSA project to provide 491 places at the site of the former IDA centre on Gardiner Street.

This €60 million seven-storey complex would be close to several institutions including Trinity College.

The substantial investment in student facilities follows several years when almost no student housing was built on, or off-campus in Dublin.

Union of Students in Ireland president Annie Hoey said she welcomed the construction of purpose-built student housing, to take students out of competition with other rents such as families and professionals, but said a lot more needed to be provided.

“This is a start, but we need to see a lot more given there is an established need nationally for housing for more than 20,000 students.

“We need more student accommodation to be built as quickly as possible.”

The crisis in student accommodation, which is seeing many students commute long distances daily from their home towns to attend courses, came about not only because of the general shortage of housing, but because “student accommodation slightly slipped off the radar”, Ms Hoey said.

She said she welcomed the Government’s commitment to the development of a national student accommodation strategy in the first half of next year to address the shortage.