Bridgetown Revitalization Investments Envisage Economic Growth, Job Creation, and Preservation of Barbados' World Heritage Site

The billions of dollars being invested in revitalising Bridgetown is expected to bring life back to The City, create jobs and help Barbados maintain its World Heritage Site designation.

Chief executive officer (CEO) of the Barbados Tourism Investment Inc Stuart Layne gave that outlook as he spoke about some of Government’s plans for the capital.

“We have a city in decline, vacant lots and dilapidated structures, poorly maintained commercial and residential areas, and a lack of activity past office hours.

“We really need to work on that and we have started looking at how to change this situation because we are living and working within our capital. We need to have a better representation of what The City should look like,” he said during the Barbados Town Planning Society’s webinar on Zoom last Friday entitled Investing In Bridgetown.

“We’ve been told and I’ve sat on the World Heritage Committee over the years, and to keep our designation, we have to have a lived-in city, so it is going to be very important that we drive activity and accommodation into The City that would allow for [it] to not be a place that we only visit for less than seven hours a day,” Layne said.

He said Golden Square Freedom Park on Fairchild Street, and the Monument To The Barbadian Family at National Heroes Square, were some of the completed work.

The CEO added there were plans to carry out more work at seven strategic reinvestment areas in and around Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison, Needham’s Point, Jemmotts Lane, Hincks Street, Trevor’s Way, Kensington Oval and Government Headquarters/Conference Centre.

He said a Marcus Garvey Amphitheatre will be constructed at Queen’s Park, efforts to improve pedestrian and beach access were in the works, the Treasury Building will be transformed into housing, and the Pierhead project which has broken ground is expected to lead to several positive impacts over the next six years.

“We are seeing another 1 500 rooms to be added within the next five to six years and an investment of over $1 billion. It’s not just hotels, but we are going to have restaurants and ancillary developments.

“We are going to have about 2 000 persons in The City daily and a minimum of 1 500 employees with permanent jobs. Because of the hotels, we are seeing another $200 million annually, calculated based on daily spend,” Layne said.

He stressed that collaboration on these plans was critical.

“We will ensure that we have a city that we all will be very proud of in another five to six years. However, it will require collaborative efforts between the Government, public and the community. If there isn’t a collaborative effort, we don’t see this moving forward.”

Douglas Patrick Luke, architect/director of Elements Architecture which is working on the Pierhead project, said several buildings on the site have already been demolished.

He said they will be doing their best to preserve the Screw Dock. “It’s in a world heritage site, but none of these buildings were listed. We would be glad if that was the case, but the Screw Dock, which is the only one left in the world, in its condition, is listed within the world heritage designation,” Luke said.