Building work to start on Innovation Campus
Work starts next month to build Cardiff University’s state-of-the-art Innovation Campus.
Bouygues UK will transform a former disused railway yard. Scheduled to open in 2021, Cardiff Innovation Campus (CIC) boasts new centres that will aim to act as a magnet for research and investment.
The Campus on Maindy Road will look to build partnerships across private, public and third sectors to exploit new ideas.
Home to two world-leading scientific research establishments – the Institute for Compound Semiconductors and Cardiff Catalysis Institute – CIC will also host SPARK, the world’s first social science research park, and an Innovation Centre – a creative space for start-ups, spinouts and partnerships.
Nick Toulson, Community Engagement Officer at Bouygues UK said: “Whilst delivering this significant development for Cardiff University, we will ensure that this project contributes to increasing local skills, development and employment in Wales. We will provide a minimum of 30 work placements, create over 35 new job and apprentice opportunities, and deliver in excess of 1,685 training weeks. We will also facilitate placements for students studying architecture and ensure we work closely with the local community throughout the duration of the scheme.
The first step of this process is to hold a Community Information Drop-In afternoon where we invite local residents and businesses and the wider community to join us to discuss the construction programme, view architects plans, computer models and experience a virtual reality tour of the Innovation Centre.”
Professor Colin Riordan, President and Vice-Chancellor, Cardiff University, said: “This second phase of Cardiff Innovation Campus will turn a disused brownfield site into public facilities, cafes and social spaces on Maindy Road. The construction programme will run for three years and the project will bring long-term social and economic prosperity by creating a ‘Home of Innovation’ that unlocks the power of research.
“Cardiff University is transforming its estate for the 21st century – the biggest campus upgrade for a generation. CIC will create jobs, act as a crucible for ideas, and allow future generations of students with great ideas to find new ways of tackling pressing global problems.”
Cardiff University is also planning to build a £50m Centre for Student Life at its Cathays campus which will be the new home for its student support services and have a 550-seat lecture theatre, due to be completed in 2020.
Last month the university announced plans to build a new sixstorey centre for maths and computer science and accommodation for almost 650 students.
The new centre for its schools of computer science and maths will be near the Students’ Union in its Cathays campus.
It is hoped new joint degrees and areas of research can be developed by combining the two schools in one 10,000 sq m building, on the site of a university car park in Senghennydd Road.
The university is also consulting on separate plans to build three new blocks of accommodation for 646 students on the former site of Brickyard Business Park in Gabalfa, Cardiff.
The new complex on Excelsior Road would add to Cardiff University’s existing Talybont complexes, which currently provide around 2,900 rooms across four schemes, as well as sports and social facilities.
A consultation has been launched on both the plans ahead of formal planning applications being submitted to Cardiff council.
The six-storey new maths and computer science building development, designed by Stride Treglown and Adjaye Associates, would also feature a plaza adjacent to the station ticket office, and paving along the front of the building on Senghennydd Road.
And the student development in Gabalfa would feature communal space, parking, landscaped courtyards and cycle and bin stores.