The proposed transfer of the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) to a new campus at Grangegorman, Dublin, does not mean it will be granted university status, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education has said.
Plans for the setting up of the Grangegorman Development Agency, which will oversee the €750 million development, are due to be announced by the Government in the coming weeks.
This follows Cabinet approval for the legislation to be drawn up to enable the move.
DIT estimates that the overall financial commitment from the Government will be about €200 million.
The rest, it says, will be financed through phased sales of its properties, many of which are located in prime city sites.
Student accommodation on the new 65-acre campus, which previously housed St Brendan's Hospital, will be self-financing.
Describing the move to Grangegorman as the "sensible option", the Department spokeswoman denied that the ultimate aim was for DIT to become a university.
She said it simply made sense to put all of DIT's facilities on one campus.
"A Government decision on the matter has been taken. But work remains to be done on some specific details."
DIT has, in the past, made plain its desire to become the state's next university.
However, a spokesman for DIT said he believed the proposed move was simply a consolidation of the institute's activities onto one site, rather than a move towards the granting of university status.
He hoped to have the "major portion" of students in place on the new campus by the 2007/2008 academic year, with the balance in situ by 2011.
DIT currently has some 40 buildings spread throughout the city.
The project, believed to be the biggest educational project ever undertaken by the state, will require a significant amount of planning by the new agency.