Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves should be meeting today (Sunday 12 December) with several investors from the Middle East, who are interested in funding elements of the modern city design.
This was disclosed by St Vincent and the Grenadines Finance Minister Camilo Gonsalves on Sunday 12 December, while speaking on WEFM’s Issue at Hand Programme.
“The Prime Minister would also be travelling to a few bilateral countries in February of 2022 to also take that plan to them, to see if there is an interest in funding it or portions of it. It would be done in much the same way he went about putting together the coalition for the airport”.
“Just two weeks ago, the cabinet was brief by a committee on three competing plans for the modern city at Arnos Vale. If you recall, we sought a design competition with international architectural firms.”
“They have laid out exciting plans for the use of the entire E.T Joshua site”.
Gonsalves said some of the designs had left the old runway intact, whereas others have built over the runway with residential, commercial and roadways etc.
“Some of them have seen the beachfront area as a boardwalk type facility where people can walk from the area called the dump, across the front of the beach and up along the river until you get back to the main road where a gentleman is selling coconuts in-front of Karibbean Tyre’s”.
“Other designs have placed the waterfront as a marina for yachts and pleasure craft. Other designs have decided to keep the old control tower as a link to the past, while others have taken it out and replaced it with something more modern”.
“We have a very detailed overview and am hoping to get permission from the committee to publish the competing designs on the internet so that the general public can see them”.
Gonsalves said the Prime Minister had expressed a desire for one of the designs, and the government quantity surveyors are doing a costing to see what that design would cost.
“The architects had given a costing; however, we want an independent costing of all the various features”.
“So we are very well advanced as to the master plan for the city at Arnos Vale”, Gonsalves said.
Gonsalves said there are no plans to let the place degenerate into a ‘free for all’, where everybody takes a little piece here and there.
The Finance Minister said the government maintains that it is the best remaining piece of real estate in state hands, which can transform the economy of St Vincent and the Grenadines.
The 63-acres of land at the decommissioned E.T Joshua airport is 10 minutes outside of Kingstown.
