A PROPOSAL to locate the new children’s hospital on a 20-acre site near the Coombe and St James’s hospitals was sent to the Minister for Health James Reilly yesterday.
The Coombe Women Infants University Hospital, which made the proposal, said the new facility could be completed in 3½ years once approved.
The proposal would see the national paediatric hospital being developed in Dolphin’s Barn on the former Bailey Gibson and John Player lands, bounded by Cork Street, South Circular Road and Donore Avenue.
The sites are owned by the Coombe hospital, Player Square Ltd and Dublin City Council.
According to the submission to Dr Reilly, a seven-storey building of 108,000sq m could be accommodated on the site with parking for 1,000 cars.
The lands form part of the Dolphin’s Barn Framework Development Plan commissioned by Dublin City Council and are a strategic development zone, to facilitate projects of particular economic and social importance to the State.
The site also has mixed-use planning permission granted by An Bord Pleanála, which allows for up to seven storeys of commercial and eight storeys of residential development, the submission said.
It did not include an estimate of how much the new paediatric hospital might cost, but said it could be built “economically”.
“Separate to this site proposal, there is an expressed willingness from a sovereign wealth fund to engage in the procurement, development and construction that merits independent assessment,” the submission said.
It also said that existing technical information and specification can be adapted to facilitate the hospital design at the new location and some of the €35 million spent to date on design, workforce planning and modes of care would be transferable.
“This will also reduce the time for preparation of planning documents,” the submission said.
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