Gov’t drawing on local expertise to design Vernamfield project

The Government will be tapping into the local pool of architectural talent to design the layout for the US$2.5-billion Vernamfield Development project.

Dubbed ‘Aerotropolis Jamaica’, the project is intended to transform the Vernamfield property in Clarendon, which was previously an army base, into an aerodrome.

The aerodrome is to provide international air cargo and logistics; aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul services; and a training school.

For the design of the proposed aerotropolis, which is still in its early planning stage, the project team will be calling for the knowledge and expertise of professional institutions and academia, including students at the University of Technology (UTech) Caribbean School of Architecture.

Project Manager for the Vernamfield Development, Lieutenant Colonel Oscar Derby, told  JIS News that the administration is looking at the architecture school to “ help us in formulating our plans and to build out our airport and all the structures around it that will be networked to the airport.”

“We believe that UTech offers a skill and a capacity that will help us and reduce the extent to which we have to go overseas for the kind of expertise that we need in the development of the area. This will enable it (the project) to be pretty much Caribbean or Jamaican in its look when it is done,” he adds.

Derby says the project team is of the belief that the proposed engagement is a good opportunity for young people to bring their creativity to a major development.

“The good thing about the development is that it is not an overnight thing. While the airport can be built within two to five years, the development around it is going to be over the next 20 years. So our young people can see a whole career in this development,” he notes.

In the meantime, Architect, Jacquiann Lawton, who heads the Caribbean School of Architecture, told JIS News that she welcomes the collaboration, noting that the students possess the extensive knowledge of urban renewal that the Vernamfield project requires.

“We have the skill sets in terms of how our students approach notions of increased densities to provide that kind of development planning,” she noted.

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