EDITORIAL - Positives in UDC deals

We are encouraged that after many false starts and over-optimistic pronouncements by various government agencies, the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) appears to be close to offloading several bits of property in downtown Kingston and its environs.

Of particular note is that a firm deal is on the table for the old Forum hotel on the other side of the Kingston Harbour causeway, in the satellite municipality of Portmore. It has been closed for the better part of three decades - except for a short stint as a dormitory for nurses and, more frequently, its use by squatters.

Further, the Forum serves as an example of the outcome of the convergence of poor planning and inappropriate economic and social policies. Hopefully, the taxpayers will now recoup some of their initial investment and 30 years of opportunity cost.

valuable lesson

But more important, in our view, is the lesson, if any, that policymakers may have learnt from the failure of ventures like the Forum and the Oceana hotel in downtown Kingston, as well as the opportunity of the imminent UDC deals to provide a fillip to the revival of the old section of the capital.

Aesthetically, downtown is perhaps among the finest pieces of real estate in the world. It looks out to the world's seventh largest natural harbour, which is almost enclosed by a spit that encompasses one of the New World's most colourful historic towns, Henry Morgan's Port Royal, of which a large chunk lies under the sea, the result of an earthquake.

But for the better portion of half a century, inept policy management, exacerbated by partisan political considerations, has caused the deterioration of downtown Kingston and the ascendancy of social anarchy.

Initially, weak leadership encouraged a trek by corporate Jamaica to other sections of the capital, while the ideological contests of the 1970s and 1980s facilitated the creation of zones of political exclusion, undermining the city's sustained renewal.

Criminality and disorder filled the vacuum even as, almost in contradiction, daytime economic activity remained robust. But downtown's central business district goes almost dead at night.

vote of confidence

The construction by the telecoms company, Digicel, of its Caribbean headquarters building downtown, bolstering the few big corporate entities that had stayed put for, provided a badly needed vote of confidence for the old city.

Now that UDC has found private-sector buyers for Oceana, currently used by the health ministry for offices, as well as the old Machado cigar factory, it should quickly unveil its long-talked-about master plan for downtown's redevelopment.

Indeed, we believe that any deal by the UDC should be underpinned by a directive from Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller for as many government ministries and agencies as possible to move back downtown. For even when it closes the current deals, the UDC will still own tens of thousands of square feet of empty office space downtown. So, too, do other government entities, including the Postal Corporation of Jamaica and the Jamaica Railway Corporation.

Another positive impact of the UDC divestments will be the removal of idle assets from the Government's books, providing cash that will help it meet the burdensome deficit target under its deal with the International Monetary Fund.

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