The University of Limerick has proposed a radical development to expand the number of beds it currently offers as student accommodation.
As reported by The Irish Times, the university is looking to build two new student residences to provide a total of around 500 additional beds for students, with one having 300 beds and the other having 200.
So far, so profoundly underwhelming, you may think. Well, I hope you have a developed palette that is able to tolerate some Hot News™, as I am about to dip into my bag of seasoning, take a pinch, and add some dang spice to this drudgery.
It seems like UL, the ol' dogs, are incapable of seeing a boat without rocking the dang thing. They baulk at the thought of building run of the mill student accommodation and these pepped-up ideas monkeys are proposing that the 200-bed residency complex will also be a 4-star hotel.
This is however where we unfortunately must take back out some of the spice, as the current proposals are essentially to have the 200 bed residency act as normal student accommodation throughout the academic year and for it to be designed in such a way as to be easily convertible to a 4-star hotel to cater to paying guests over the summer months. I'm imagining that this will be some sort of speakeasy arrangement where there will be a large red button in the lobby of the building, perhaps behind some sort of velvet rope and, after all the students have been sent home for summer each year, the president of UL will swan up to the button, straight through said velvet rope, and slap his big meaty paws down on the thing. At this point, the entire building - a relatively normal block of student accommodation- will revolve into the earth and in its stead will emerge a glistening 4-star hotel, the UL Hilton or some such.
This is almost certainly not going to be how that operates, I'm no construction engineer but I imagine it's not the most cost-effective method of building design.
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How they are hoping it will be designed, according to a project information memo regarding the development, is that they are looking to have "200 premier standard en suite bedrooms", which will be arranged as either "high-end faculty apartment"; "studio apartments" and in a more conventional four or six bedroom per apartment set up with "shared living/social spaces".
Now, given the furore that is going on in DCU in relation to the massive price hikes that two private student residences, Shanowen Hall and Shanowen Square, are looking to bring in from next year, the issue of the often exploitative cost of student housing is a sensitive subject. A UL spokesperson has said that approximately 100 beds, in the larger, non-hotel based 300-bed complex, will be designed to provide a "comfortable but low-cost option to students and accordingly bedrooms may not be en suite."
The spokesperson stressed that, given they are still in the earliest stages of the project and have not announced dates for when the residences will be completed or even appoint a design team, they are not as yet able to predict the cost of the development or what the rental costs for the rooms will be.
