Tralee RTC is planning a development on its North Campus by the year 2000, to cater for an expected increase in students numbers from the present 3,100 to around 4,500. The first phase is expected to cost some £10 million, £6 million of which will come from EU funding. Plans lodged at the beginning of the summer with Kerry County Council envisage a three-phase development of a 62-acre site at Dromtacker.
Subject, of course, to planning permission being granted, preparatory work is scheduled to begin on the North Campus site at the end of this year, and the actual building work will begin next year. An intensive planting programme is being put in place to establish a dense woodland buffer between the new campus and neighbouring properties.
According to college secretary Donal Fitzgibbon, earth-moving on the site will be largely internal, as soil from the building area will be used for the development of playing fields.
As the drawings from architects Ahrends Burton and Koralek show, the first buildings, located in the centre of the site, will be in the form of a crescent, following the lines of the site.
The three-storey buildings will feature simple-low key colours with slate grey metal roofs and the highest of the differently-sized windows will be five metres above ground level.
The initial phase of the North Campus buildings is designed to cater for a planned student body of 2,050, of whom some 1,000 will be business studies students, 700 in computers and information technology and 350 on hotel, catering and tourism courses.
