Bank of Ireland plans to spend €10m reworking historic branch ahead of 2016

Bank of Ireland has submitted a planning application to Dublin City Council for permission to make changes to its historic branch and office building at College Green, opposite the entrance to Trinity College.

The work will pave the way for a cultural and heritage centre that will be provided to the State to celebrate a decade of centenaries starting in 2016.

The bank will spend about €10 million refurbishing the protected structure and meeting some of the running costs of the cultural centre, which will be provided to the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht for 10 years.

The application seeks to change the use of existing administrative offices on the east side of the campus to a cultural and heritage centre. The bank wants to demolish a 1950s courtyard infill block on the west side of the complex and construct a new three-storey office building in the same location. This would have a disabled access lift and bridge links to existing buildings.

Footbridge

The application seeks the provision of an enclosed, glazed footbridge on the first floor to link the main building to a three-storey block on the north of the campus. It also wants to resurface the courtyard facing College Green, including provision of a “lightweight and architecturally reversible disabled access ramp”.

In addition, it wants to redecorate the main spaces on the ground floor of the building, including the east and west halls, the main hall and corridors. This involves the internal refitting of the current foreign exchange bureau, including the removal of a “modern counter and restoration of original features”.

Multipurpose space

The works are necessary for the bank to provide about 600sq m of multipurpose space that can be adapted for State exhibitions to commemorate centenaries from the Easter Rising in 1916 through to the early years of the Irish Free State. It will be accessible to the public from the entrance in the Gandon-built portico on Westmoreland Street.

Calls have been made for the bank to hand over the College Green buildings to the State in recognition of its taxpayer-funded bailout following the collapse of the financial sector. The bank, which is 14 per cent State-owned, has argued that College Green is its flagship branch, with about 30,000 customer accounts.

The College Green building was a purpose-built parliament house with two chambers. Construction work began in 1729 and it housed the Irish parliament until the Act of Union in 1800 abolished its powers. Bank of Ireland purchased the complex in 1803.