Kingston waterfront park likely to take a year to design

The planned waterfront park which will span nine acres in downtown Kingston will take nearly a year to design.

And there is yet no timeline for it to move from design to completion.

“The project is still at the concept stage,” said the Planning Institute of Jamaica, PIOJ, “so that could be determined after the urban design concept by the selected consultant has been submitted and reviewed. The procurement documents that were online estimated that the design consultancy should be for approximately 45 weeks.”

That puts the timeline for the design by year end, which then would start another stage of the plan, eventually leading to a tender for its construction, the Financial Gleaner understands.

Applications for the design consultancy closed last month, but PIOJ said that it would not be able to provide any information on the status of the procurement process. The tender attracted bidders who formed themselves into teams that consist of architects, engineers, sociologists, biologists, and other professionals. The project aims to desegregate the capital city by bringing the residents of uptown and downtown together.

The proposed park will run along the Ocean Boulevard waterfront for 1.7 kilometres, starting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade building and extending beyond the Digicel building towards the West Kingston Pen Gully. The area will span nine acres, factoring in the waterways and park.

Tender documents indicate that about 60 per cent of the lands in the planning area are owned by government agencies. There are plans to pull together a list of the properties likely to be impacted by the project; gather information on affected residents and businesses and other groups; and assess the water quality in the harbour and nearby gullies, and the presence of floating garbage.

The PIOJ stated that the Jamaica Social Investment Fund will lead on Component II of the project, which will focus on communities, for which the conceptual design is an input.

Component II is currently conceived as an intervention that will support the development of micro and small business enterprises in the wider downtown area, it indicated.

“This will include the development, registration, and support of business owners, vendors and other enterprise holders who potentially can and will participate in the Kingston Waterfront Improvement Project. The project will also intervene, where necessary, in small and medium-scale infrastructure upgrades that would be complementary and relevant to economic development and the wider waterfront development,” the PIOJ stated.

The project, which aims to spur social activity, which in turn is expected to feed back into economic activity along the waterfront, and will be spearheaded by the Urban Development Corporation.

The development of the park will be financed by the World Bank under the Foundation for Competitiveness and Growth Project as a “catalytic investment” in infrastructure and planning, to lay the groundwork for follow-on public-private development in the surrounding areas.

steven.jackson@gleanerjm.com