1,000 student bed spaces to be created in €75m plan

A UK investment fund is planning to purchase up to five sites in Galway City to create bed spaces for 1,000 students in a €75 million plan.

Ziggurat is already in negotiations to purchase two sites, and is actively looking at two to three other sites – all of which are within a five to ten-minute walk of NUI Galway.

Co-founder Matthew McAdden said the private investment fund has been looking at Galway as a potential location since 2012, and its chairman also lives here.

There will be a capital investment of €75m in the city, and the first ‘block’ of student accommodation should be available for letting in 2019.

Mr McAdden was tight-lipped on locations, but has ruled out the former Corrib Great Southern Hotel as it is not for sale.

“We’d be looking to buy four to five places, which would have 150 to 250 [beds] per block. It would be completed five years from now, but the first site will be completed in 2019,” said Mr McAdden.

For more on this story, see this week’s Galway City Tribune