The sod is due to be turned next summer on a €70 million business school at Trinity College Dublin, which is to be co-located with an innovation and entrepreneurship hub.

Announcing the project yesterday, the provost of Trinity, Patrick Prendergast, said the development, which is subject to planning permission, would begin next summer and would be completed by 2017.

The development is planned for the Pearse Street side of the campus and will span 13,000sq m, with six storeys above ground and three below.

It will include a 600-seat auditorium, restaurant spaces for 200 people, public space where students can meet, “smart” classrooms with the latest digital technology, and a rooftop conference room.

As well as the existing suite of business courses at the university, the school will also offer new business programmes at undergraduate, postgraduate and executive levels.

A spokesman for the university said it had already raised significant funding towards the cost of the project from philanthropic sources, and plans to raise more funding, privately and publicly, were well advanced. Revenue sources for the project include self-generated income from fee-paying business programmes, income from the sale of off-campus office space and the leasing of retail units and student apartments.

Speaking yesterday at the Trinity Global Graduate Forum, Dr Prendergast said the planned Trinity School of Business showed the university was committed to investing in innovation and entrepreneurship.

“Working together, higher education institutions and Government can create the environment that draws the research and enterprise communities into partnerships, promoting innovation, entrepreneurship and new business creation,” he said.