Another old Government building is getting spruced up as the Mia Mottley administration continues its multi-million-dollar Rejuvenation Programme.
On Friday, during a press briefing at the Planning and Development Department building (the old Town and Country Planning building), at Block ‘C’, Garrison, St Michael, Senior Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for infrastructural projects and town planning matters Dr William Duguid said work was ongoing to restore that historic structure.
He said it will cost $1.1 million to renovate the building and work should be completed in six months. Mint Finish Construction Ltd is the contractor and ten employees are on the job.
“It is one of the older buildings in Barbados and it is so important that we’re able to refurbish and to bring these older buildings back to use. You would recall that I did a lot of work also on the Parliament, which is one of the old buildings as well. It’s hard sometimes to get these older buildings back because they get damp, they get moisture because a lot of them are the old soft stone and that often tends to suck moisture up,” he said.
“The contractor has told us that once they get all of the damp sorted out, get all the partitions sorted out, all the environmental situations, removing the carpets, putting in some tiles, getting the air conditioner up to scratch, getting the generator moving again, that this building will be back to good use.”
The senior minister explained that a number of public buildings were plagued with environmental issues because they were built to facilitate natural ventilation and not air conditioning.
“Natural ventilation meant that the water and the moisture in the air dried because it was natural. When we closed up the building so that we could make it better for air conditioning, it means that you don’t get that natural ventilation and instead you get moisture on the walls, so then you get damp being created – the same thing that we saw in the Parliament building. So we had to find other ways to stop the damp from raising up the walls,” he said.
Dr Duguid said the refurbished Planning and Development building will have some modern features and better WiFi connectivity.
“We’re trying to make it more open plan because there was a time when it was small offices and everybody wanted a small office. Modern ways of doing business and modern ways of working show us an open plan tends to get more productivity. We’re not only keeping our eye on making it more environmentally friendly, but also with a means to enhance the productivity of the department that is doing really, really well so far,” he added.
The 57 workers in the Planning and Development Department have been temporarily relocated to the Warrens Office Complex.
Dr Duguid also announced that the department had issued a record number of building permissions. He said 1 300 permissions were given in the space of eight months and construction on 700 buildings have started.
The minister said there were also plans to repair some of the buildings in the nearby area as well as the Treasury Building.
Some of the other structures in the Rejuvenation Programme are the Welfare Building, opposite the National Housing Corporation in Country Road, St Michael; the former Supreme Court building; the gatehouse on the compound of the Ministry of Transport and Works, The Pine, St Michael; and the former Sanitations Service Authority building in Vaucluse, St Thomas.
Sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb
