Opinion: George Town is an eyesore and ‘revitalisation’ has made it worse

By Simon Cawdery, Compass columnist 

They say that Rome wasn’t built in a day which presumably is true, but even Rome can’t have taken as long as the seemingly endless George Town revitalisation project.

Incidentally, does anyone remember when the so-called ‘revitalisation’ actually started? It seems to have been dragging on for years and mysteriously stopped work during COVID, precisely when it should have been full steam ahead (disruption then wouldn’t have inconvenienced anyone).

There comes a time in everyone’s life when you must accept you got it wrong. The plan failed. The idea while noble, well intentioned, honourable and honest, just wasn’t up to scratch. That time is now for George Town. It’s an eyesore.

Whose idea was this?

Who thought that closing George Town to all but the brave over the peak tourist season was a good idea?

Who thought that having a pedestrianised road with 18-inch kerbs was a good idea. Great for the orthopaedic surgeons from the looming volume of ankle injuries, maybe, but utter madness.

Who thought that what George Town needed was more concrete, more brickwork and less shade?

Who thought that what George Town needed was additional complexity to doing business in terms of logistics, dust pollution, noise and such like? Not the many businesses that have closed down, lamenting the absurdity of the planning.

And who thought that George Town would be revitalised without anywhere to park and solving the car issue? People need cars to get into George Town, and yet now there is less parking than before. Less parking means fewer visitors. Fewer visitors mean less profitable shops.

Cayman, rightly or wrongly, is a car-driven community. No one from Bodden Town is walking to George Town to do their weekend shopping. In fact, no one from South Sound is either, which offers a hint as to the real problem of George Town.

A question of accessibility

George Town, to be attractive to visitors and residents alike, needs to be accessible.

Accessibility can mean many things. It can mean accessible to cars, accessible to pedestrians, accessible to cyclists, and it can also mean accessible to those with physical disabilities.

In this article, it means all the above, but I want to spend a moment discussing the latter – access for disabled persons. I challenge any able-bodied person to rent a wheelchair or crutches for a day and then try and navigate George Town with ease, and without injury. George Town’s very layout and footprint is a danger to such people and we should be ashamed for allowing it to be so.

Businesses in George Town need customers. But if customers can’t safely get to the shops without risking injuries they obviously aren’t going to bother.

In fairness, George Town was not accessible before the ‘revitalisation’ works, but now in many ways it’s worse. Before, the road was distinguished from the pedestrianised sidewalk (or kerb). Now they’ve become synonymous, thanks to some roads becoming car-free, which means you could be walking along the sidewalk one moment and suddenly find yourself 18 inches lower the next, likely injured and definitely cursing the twisted logic of those who thought that pedestrianising a street didn’t require making it level. It needs fixing.

I challenge anyone in planning, in government, or anywhere, frankly, to speak to a shop owner, a shop worker, or a shopper and find someone who thinks the work to revitalise George Town has been well organised, well managed, efficiently done, or been a positive experience. It’s a total and utter shambles. Shops have closed, businesses have relocated. Workers have exited. Surely when the outlook and mood is so depressing it’s time for a bit of radical thinking? After all, the alternatives can hardly be worse…

‘Bulldozer time’

In a previous article, I suggested, perhaps somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that the best thing that could be done would be to ‘Bulldoze George Town’.

It’s got a ring to it, which MGTGA (Make George Town Great Again) doesn’t quite have (perhaps MaGToGA – the same, but with vowels for ease of chanting – might work?). It’s an eyesore. It’s an embarrassment. Certainly, save a handful of buildings for historic reasons, but in my opinion, it needs to be cleared. If you think me too harsh, I urge you to walk or drive around George Town and take a photo of any building that you think is architecturally pretty or worth saving. I guarantee you won’t fill up your phone’s camera storage.

Simply put, those in charge of George Town need to admit defeat and stop. Stop making it worse, stop wasting money, and stop ruining people’s livelihoods. Instead, let’s have a short pause, and a sensible reflection on a long-term strategy; red paving bricks and a few dying pot plants do not a long-term strategy make.

The outlines of a strategy

First and foremost, we need to accept that George Town needs to accommodate cars, both for shopping and commuting as well as permit car transit. The non-car, public transport utopia of which urban planners dream is not a near-term reality for Cayman.

If you live in South Sound you must go through George Town to get anywhere westwards, at the moment. Harbour Drive, Seafarers Way and North Church Street are major roads for commuters and travellers alike. If someone can suggest improvements to Walkers Road and Smith Road or widening Shedden Road and Eastern Avenue that could take cars out of George Town and around, without worsening the existing ‘situation’ by the cricket field, that would be great. Is it possible? Has anyone considered it? Let’s hear some ideas! That would be the start of an opportunity.

The plan would be to clear the waterfront of cars, except those necessary for the operation of the port, and only during certain limited hours with strict restrictions. That would make most of George Town a properly pedestrianised area. We all want to see a George Town that has an atmosphere of energy, cheerfulness and optimism, rather than the depressing mood of doom and desolation that currently infuses every paving stone and building of George Town. But the current plan isn’t working, won’t work and lacks strategic vision. It’s honestly time to tear it up, admit defeat, take a deep breath and start again.

As much as one might like to imagine an idyllically fully pedestrianised George Town with people walking and chatting, children playing, dogs wagging their tails excitedly and market stalls flourishing, laying some bricks won’t make it so. Making life more difficult for the very people George Town relies on to thrive – without first implementing viable improvements to alternative routes – is a recipe for chaos. And yet that, maddeningly, seems to be exactly what’s happening.

A new George Town

George Town needs to be redesignated as a Special Development Zone. What would that mean? What it should mean is that developers get substantial freedom to build or develop as they wish. 10 storeys? Fine. Want to knock down a building? Please do.

Mixed-use accommodation, shops and offices? Fine. Reduce government taxes on property transactions in the downtown area to zero for five years, thereby encouraging activity and innovation. Government could extend similar incentives to small businesses as it does in the Sister Islands, offering reduced fees for those operating in George Town for a five-year period. This would encourage entrepreneurs to bring new energy and purpose to the area.

What else could be done? I am sure a number of things. Ask any shopkeeper as a starting point. In order to provoke some debate and discussion, let me propose some ideas:

1. Half of the streets (at least) in George Town should be covered with shade sails or similar. Businesses will need to permit access or allow screws to be installed in their walls, but why would they object?
2. New buildings should be encouraged to span a road. That way there’s natural shade and people can walk through buildings with shops inside. The old-school approach of only building beside streets is outdated and wasteful in a hot climate such as Cayman.
3. Harbour Drive and part of North Church Street should become a restricted access road, provided improvements are made around George Town to the road network to allow speedy, seamless transit around the downtown area.
4. Demolish the Glass House – why is it even still there over 20 years later, still empty? Even the old Hyatt has seen more progress.
5. Relocate the courts and the police station out of George Town. It was a recommendation years ago from the chief justice for the courts, and the police have been advocating for new premises for years, too. It will free up space and room to start demolishing some buildings and turn George Town into a centre for entrepreneurs.
6. Build three multi-storey (or similar) parking areas on the three arteries into George Town and then convert the car parks of the multiple office buildings into productive, usable space. Mandate that all cars must park in those spaces, meaning everyone would have a five-minute walk from their car. Perhaps a system of large electric golf-cart style vehicles could be introduced to shuttle people around from the major car parks to the offices if five minutes is considered too long a walk. You may ask where to build these car parks? A simple example would be where the police station and current Glass House are. It’s a central location on the edge of town easily accessible from a major artery into town. Another option might be near the new road (if it’s ever finished) by Wahoo Close.
7. Install covered bike areas where people can put their bicycle, scooter or other small mobility device, safe from the ravages of the sun and rain, and damage. That would actually encourage people to use such devices.

The irony in all of this is that we actually have a clear image of what could be done. You may not like everything about Camana Bay, but one thing that is indisputable is that it’s a far more pleasant place to walk around. It has shown what could be done and should serve as an inspiration.

Surely that should be the very minimum that George Town should aspire to? Flowing water, cool breeze, a vibrant evening community, a lively office scene, fresh fish markets, fresh food markets … the list goes on. There’s so much that it could aspire to be and yet it is so disappointing and embarrassing in its current form. George Town was cobbled together from the 1950s and it shows. It’s time to Bulldoze George Town and properly revitalise it.