The design of the €80 million College Green civic plaza has been revealed by Dublin City Council, almost eight years since the last plaza plans were rejected by An Bord Pleanála.
The council has opened public consultation on the revamped and extended traffic-free plaza scheme in advance of lodging a fresh application to An Coimisiún Pleanála, the board’s successor, this summer.
The new project, Grow College Green, will see traffic banned from the area west of the Luas lines in front of Trinity College, as far as the junction with Dame Street and South Great George’s Street.
The area, extending to 17,000sq m (183,000sq ft), would be a “pedestrian priority” public space, the council said, crossed by defined cycle paths. The new designs focus on climate resilience and “greening” with 75 new trees and 1,400sq m of landscaped areas, which will increase “greening on Dame Street from 0 per cent to 30 per cent”, it said.
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The designs also incorporate several water features, including the existing Thomas Davis statue and memorial fountain on Dame Street, a “rain garden”, and an “artistic water feature”. The public space would also include a number of seating areas and space for hosting events, cultural activity or “major civic moments”, the council said.
The designs have been informed by more than 2,800 written submissions and draw together elements that “celebrate the character of the area while ensuring the new space feels distinctly and authentically Dublin”.
Speaking on the publication of the designs, council chief executive Richard Shakespeare said the new scheme “represents a significant step forward in reimagining one of Dublin’s most historic and important public spaces”.
“By opening up views to our landmark buildings and weaving in the textures and stories of the past, the design will restore a real sense of importance to this historic location.”
Lord Mayor Ray McAdam said there was a clear commitment to making College Green “inclusive and accessible, with the input of Disabled Persons Organisations helping to shape what welcome and usable really mean in practice”.
Green Party councillor Janet Horner, who chairs the council’s mobility and public realm committee, encouraged people to take part in the public consultation, which runs until March 11th at engage.ie. “I hope as many people as possible will take part in this consultation as their feedback will play a vital role in shaping a city space that everyone can feel proud of.”
[ Dublin’s traffic plan: The changes expected across the city this yearOpens in new window ]
The council last submitted a planning application for the College Green plaza in May 2017. In November 2018, the planning board refused permission, citing the potential for “significantly negative impacts” on bus services.
The National Transport Authority (NTA) in September 2020 published its final plans for a redesigned bus network for the city. Under BusConnects, services would be routed away from College Green and east Dame Street.
With the conflict with bus services removed, the council decided to double the size of the plaza, extending it from College Green to George’s Street. Under the plan, buses will still run in front of Trinity College along the same axis as the Luas line but will no longer cross the Luas line into Dame Street.
When the council last applied for the plaza in 2017 it estimated the project’s cost at €10 million. Last June the new scheme’s project manager, Marie Gavin, said approval had been secured for a budget of “about €80 million” that would be part-funded by the NTA. That included a “huge contingency fee” of “about 40 per cent” but that should “hopefully cover everything we have to do”, she said.
Gavin at the time said she hoped to be on site by November 2027 “with the best will in the world, and then it could be up to a three-year construction period”, meaning the plaza could be completed by 2030.
