Sir Robert McAlpine founded a
construction business in England in 1869.
It took over 100 years for the
company to get to Cayman, but its arrival could not go unnoticed because it had
a contract for two landmark projects — the Assembly Building and Court House.
McAlpine Caribbean had its
headquarters in Jamaica, where Henry Propper was regional chief engineer. The
company moved its regional offices to Grand Cayman in 1972, with Mr. Propper
now regional manager.
In a 1995 interview, he recalled
visiting Cayman on business in the late 1960s and thinking of it as frontier
territory, with Barclays Bank the only building in the centre of George Town
that was over two storeys.
Since then, McAlpine has been
responsible for the completion of numerous buildings in both the public and
private sectors. An article in the Caymanian Compass listed some them when Mr.
Propper was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of
his service to the construction industry. They include the 1975 Government
Administration Building and the new Government Administration Building
scheduled for completion in 2011, the George Town Port and expansion, the
Esso/Texaco pipeline, the Aall Building, CIBC Building, British American
Centre, the Transnational complex, The Great House, apartments and
condominiums. Other projects include the Kirkconnell Home Centre, Maples and
Calder, Citrus Grove and the George Town Hospital.
McAlpine has placed emphasis on
developing local expertise and improving various aspects of the industry. As
one example, the firm was lauded in 2007 for completion of an
86,000–square–foot building with a perfect safety record, even though the
project involved some 650,000 working hours. There was not a single recordable
incident, which is defined as an individual being unable to return to work the
next day.
Related Videos
