Ground broken for Boundbrook Urban Centre in Portland

Ground was broken on Wednesday for the construction of a $4.2 billion urban centre at Boundbrook, near Bryan's Bay in Portland, which will house government offices and private entities.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness, political representatives from Portland, a team from the Factories Corporation of Jamaica and China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) participated in the ground-breaking ceremony.

Holness said the project, which is to be undertaken by CHEC, is being done in the right way which resulted in the delay to the start of the actual construction.

“So this is not a chakka-chakka development. And I can tell you that because we were trying to avoid chakka-chakkaness it took longer than we wanted," commented Holness.

“Portland is set for massive developments. But they're not going to be high-intensity, high-density developments. No, we specifically want to avoid that. We are going for high-value, low-density development, including the development of the East Harbour into a cruise shipping port," he said.

He said the Government has a well thought out, coordinated plan backed by the resources to sustain long-term infrastructure investment, without interruption.

"That is what is different with this government. I am busy building, building. We are the government that is building Jamaica. We understand infrastructure and this project will not be the last one. We incorporate the private sector in these plans because we believe in the democratisation of wealth," Holness added.     

- Gareth Davis

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