Demolition of the Government-owned Tower Building will begin in the next few weeks, Cabinet Minister Arden McLean said at a press briefing Friday.
A park could be built on the site afterwards, Mr. McLean said, adding that there is a need to create a green area in George Town.
‘There could be a park behind the library or where the Tower Building sits,’ he said. ‘One or the other will be used as a park for the people of George Town.’
Even if the Tower Building site is not used for the proposed park, no other building would be built on the site, Mr. McLean said.
The Tower Building was seriously damaged and made unusable by Hurricane Ivan. The building accommodated many government departments at the time, including Lands and Survey, Planning, Children and Family Services, General Registry and the Legal Department.
All of those entities have had to lease other accommodations since Ivan, which is costing Government nearly $5 million on an annual basis, Leader of Government Business Kurt Tibbetts said.
Office fit-outs for those moves have also cost the Government a tremendous amount of money, Mr. Tibbetts said, giving the example of the $800,000 it cost for the fit-out of space at BritCay House for Lands & Survey’s move there.
Even prior to Hurricane Ivan there had been a plan to demolish the Tower Building, which had poor ventilation and problems with mould, fungi and fibreglass exposure, and to build a new government accommodation project.
Mr. Tibbetts said he had received a document last week that outlined the options for the building of future government accommodation.
Along with the proposals looked at by the previous administration, there are some new possibilities in the option package.
‘There’s the possibility of building on two different sites, and they both need not be in Central George Town,’ Mr. Tibbetts said.
The option package identifies possible sites for the buildings, which include both crown land and privately owned land, the Leader of Government Business said.
Funding for the government office accommodation project will have to be discussed with the United Kingdom at the Overseas Territories meeting in October, Mr. Tibbetts said.
‘(Funding the project) may cause problems with the agreed borrowing limits.’
Mr. Tibbetts said it was hoped the UK would look at the government office accommodations project separately because it won’t create any new expenditure because the Government is already paying $5 million annually for leases, which is the funding that will be used to service the debt for the project.
On another Government accommodations topic, Mr. Tibbetts said funding is included in the proposed new budget for the stairs to create the proper fire escape from the Glass House.
Mr. Tibbetts said it ‘pained him’ to have to include the half-million dollars worth of funding because it still unknown if the 30-year-old Glass House would be renovated or demolished.
‘There will be an integrity test on the Glass House, and then a decision will be made. It may be scrapped,’ Mr. Tibbetts said, noting that the decision would not be made until after the new accommodation project is determined.
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