Redevelopment in the works
The Cayman Islands government is in the process of finalising an agreement to grant a 10-year lease on the Crown land to Magnum Jewelers, with two options that could extend the lease to a maximum of 30 years. The initial rent will be $60,000 per year for the 0.24-acre site. A request for tenders was sent out by the Lands and Survey Department in mid-2010.
Gene Thompson, who is partnering on the development with Harry Chandi, said they plan to invest some $1.5 million in the project.
“The plans are to redevelop the site, to upgrade it and to make it more attractive, with public restrooms, to create stalls for small vendors and to put up a Magnum store in there as well,” Mr. Thompson said.
No specifics just yet
Mr. Thompson said the building is in “very bad shape” and said the project will not proceed until after government approves the lease and arrangements are made with the existing tenants, who will be guaranteed space in the new building, if they so choose. Mr. Thompson said he assumes the current handful of tenants, including the Craft Market Cafe, will have to find other places to rent while construction is under way.
He is not concerned that Magnum Jewelers will only have a long-term lease for the property, rather than outright ownership.
“We believe that the economics will work out so that at the end of the lease, we would have been able to recover our investment. Then obviously the building reverts back to government,” he said.
Tenant John Schirn, who is the owner of Brittany’s Black Coral, has operated his business out of the Craft Market building for nearly 20 years.
“We hope that the new landlords are going to be agreeable with us and are going to renovate the building and at least try to keep what we feel the feel of George Town is, or at least what George Town was,” Mr. Schirn said.
He said the tenants have been kept apprised of Magnum Jewelers’ bid to control the building, and that he was looking forward to speaking to the new landlords and finding out what their plans are.
“We’ve been happy here. The only thing we’re fearing is that they may raise up the rents so that we can’t afford it,” he said.
The meat market
Resident Conseulo Ebanks said she remembers the site as ‘the meat market’ when she was first married and living in George Town. It was the place where people would go and stand in line to buy freshly slaughtered beef and turtle. The turtles were slaughtered where the South Terminal on Harbour Drive is now.
According to documents from the Cayman Islands National Archive, the original George Town market was a small wooden building on the waterfront, allowing animals to be slaughtered nearby and the blood and carcasses to be disposed of directly into the sea. Legislation was passed in 1891 allowing for the construction of the original market building.
According to the 1938 “Annual Report on the Social and Economic Progress of the People of the Cayman Islands”, the Jamaican government approved a £6,500 loan to Cayman in July 1938 for the construction of several buildings, including a ‘market’, as well as several assemblies, schools, a post office, and public library. The portion of the loan for the new market was £400. All the buildings funded through the loan were to feature cement blocks, asbestos and steel windows. Most of the materials came from the United Kingdom, with some coming from Jamaica and 90 per cent of the timber from British Columbia.
In the 1960s, the meat market on Cardinall Avenue was regarded by some as a nuisance, mainly due to unsanitary conditions, including animals being slaughtered right near the property and blood running down the street. Another problem, according to a letter written to lawmakers, was that the eastern part of the site was used for barbering, and when the wind blew from a certain direction, it would cover the market participants, goods and meat with hair.
Company RE McTaggart and Bro. submitted a letter to government expressing interest in buying the property in April 1967. In September 1969, Tourist Board Chairman Eric Bergstrom urged government to shut down and relocate the meat market, describing it as “the eyesore in George Town known as the ‘Turtle Slaughterhouse’”.
Government paid several thousand dollars to renovate the meat market building in 1970.
Cayman Islands National Trust Historic Programmes Manager Denise Bodden said the building was renovated a few times after that. She said that while the site is of historic importance, the building itself is not.
“From my understanding, what is there now is not original at all. What is there now is all modern,” she said.
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Wow! How imaginative, yet another jewellery store. It’s a pity that no one seems to set any store by creating a balance between shops and stores that provide food for local people. George Town is a ghost town afer the banks and few local stores that remain downtown have closed. There are just a few places for people to walk to to get something decent to eat for their lunch or snack. Maybe Mr. Dart has grand plans to revive the place into something pleasant but for now it is a sad shadow of a place that I used to enjoy. It just seems like a place where people can just buy expensive baubles and leave rather than being the quite vibrant town that local people used to enjoy which it used to be. Everything changes of course, but clearly not always for the better. How many jewellery stores does the Cayman Islands need and can the number that are already here be profitable?
Just catering to the cruise ship passengers — at a time when fewer and fewer are coming to Cayman because the Government doesn’t have the foresight to build a cruise ship dock. But really — we have ENOUGH jewelery stores — let’s have something for the people who LIVE here! Not much of the earned stays here — the Chandis are from India! How about businesses that are 100% Caymanian? And the cruise ship customers, no doubt, would enjoy seeing a bit of Cayman culture.