A prominent real estate broker predicted Friday that the controversial Hyatt Ziva hotel to be built in Bay Street will be a catalyst for the revival of development in and around The City.
Cherita O’dell, real estate broker with Million Dollar Homes and Barbados Real Estate 246, said she believed now is therefore the time for local property developers to rush to the capital, which has experienced an exodus over several decades.
She made the comments while taking part in one of the Barbados Town Planning Society’s Revitalising Bridgetown online series, which was held under the theme Can Housing Development Help Revitalise Bridgetown?
During the session, the panellists agreed that residential housing in Bridgetown would help breathe new life into a now dying city, but it must be done while changing the culture and mindset of residents about the area and catering to a mixture of people including university students, young professionals and upper-middle-class city dwellers.
In her presentation, O’dell said she was convinced that the first step to revitalising Bridgetown and attracting more residents there was to make it a more attractive proposition “by the very nature of its personality and its vibe”.
She said: “By creating the activities and events you can expose a wider portion of your community located in your urban core. If Bajans see Bridgetown as a place to go for activities besides getting school socks and reactivating their credit cards they will come. The place will look busy and busyness attracts.
“Now, the Hyatt might be a little bit of a point of contention, but I am an optimist. I honestly believe that the construction of the Hyatt is going to serve as a catalyst for other hotels and developers to follow.
“I honestly believe we are on the cusp of creating the ultimate canvas for a ballsy developer or developers to step up and paint. Now is the time. Sometimes the best time to start businesses or start new opportunities is such a time as this – pandemic, volcano, everything going to hell in a handbasket – perfect. The likelihood of success is so much higher.”
Stressing that a “vibrant downtown strategy” was necessary for the island’s capital, she said in order to attract major international developers there should be growth in the economy, effective international shipping and air linkages, ease in doing business, and strong political and executive leadership “which prioritizes investment”.
O’dell declared: “Yes, we have local developers, but the reality is that sometimes those coming with the money that can transform acreage and blocks are coming from outside and they want to know that when they come in and they are trying to get things done they are not seen as the enemy. They want to be embraced as customers.”
The realtor said while some “good efforts” have been made to create green spaces, recreational facilities and parking spaces to accommodate greater volumes, which complements an already good transport network in The City, more needed to be done.
Kelly Hunte, Senior Housing Planner with the Ministry of Housing pointed to several changes in Bridgetown over the years, noting that the residential population in the capital peaked in 1871 at just over 21,360 people.
By 1946, it had dropped to 13,121 people, and to 5,996 in the year 2000. And by 2010, the residential population in The City stood at just over 4,750 people.
“Those are very significant numbers. The drop off cannot be ignored,” said Hunte, as she highlighted some public housing projects, which she said suggested that successive administrations have made interventions over the years.
Adding that there were a lot of opportunities, she said The City offered rich history, green spaces, a national transportation hub, and attractive waterfront, but was in “a state of transition” at this point.
But Hunte said there were several lingering concerns among residents including the lack of cleanliness, vagrants, congestion, stigma, rodents and poverty.
She suggested a change in culture “to move us to the point of having Bridgetown become that desirable place”.
“Culture will eat strategy for breakfast every time,” Hunte declared. “We have been strategizing, there are numerous plans. Every physical development plan talks about the need to upgrade residential areas in Bridgetown, deliberate efforts to make the city more appealing, to drive investment, but yet we have a situation where the prime areas of Bridgetown are declining.”
She agreed that residential housing could help to revitalise Bridgetown, pointing out that housing development in such areas as the London Bourne Towers and Kensington Lodge has helped to change how people view those areas.
The housing planner said: “We need to create a culture in the same way we have created a culture of owning a piece off the rock. We need to have a definite culture change that causes Barbadians to view Bridgetown as desirable and wanting to live there.
“We have got persons of lower-income who are keeping portions of the City alive at night, we need to be able to replicate that – create middle-income areas, high-end areas – and make The City something every Barbadian thinks ‘I am part of this’ and ‘I want a part of this’.” (marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb)
