Local News

Work to upgrade the historic Memorial Park in Belize City is set to finish in time for the September celebrations.  According to Project Director of the Sustainable Tourism Programme, Christy Maestre, there were some changes to the original design of the project

CHRISTY MAESTRE

Project Director

Sustainable Tourism Program

“Right now we’re coming into probably our fifth month of construction and as you can see the park is very well underway.  With our anticipated schedule we have consolidated some of the construction, especially in the park area so that we have it ready for September celebrations.  So what we will have ready is the large stage replacement, which everyone can see going up; we will also have the significant portion of the memorial in place also for the Ex-servicemen league for their ceremonies that come up in November.  There will be the replacement and refurbishment of the obelisque itself; the refurbishment of the traditional bandstand that I think everyone remembers so fondly in the park itself, so that will be back there too.  So the park will be ready for Foreign Affairs and their activities that they have.  As well as South Park Street, as you can see is advancing very much with the bollards and all the pavers in place, that will be open for actual traffic accessibility into the park for the ceremonies themselves.  So that’s where we are right now with the park itself.  Some of the changes we have anticipated have been mainly civil works and some of the structural changes to the roadbeds themselves.  In some locations we’ve gone from the pavers which everyone will see to the stampcrete, which is actually a cast in place slab as you can we are standing on it right now and it’s mainly at areas where we have the large turning radius for the buses that will be coming through here and up at the top of the park where the buses will be trafficking on a day to day basis.  I think the main aesthetic about it is consolidating a uniformed look to the streets but also the widening of the sidewalk, the fact that we’re also making the pedestrian feel welcome in the space.  So it is definitely focused on a lot of the tourism industry that takes place in this area both overnight and cruise but as we talked about, it’s upping the value of the investment for the residents in the area, for the businesses in the area and potentially making it a twenty-four-seven place for all locals to enjoy as well as cruise tourists when they are here for the day but remember they are gone by 3pm, so we need to find other activities that us, locals can participate in on a day to day basis within the area and on weekends especially.”

The entire project, including the upgrade of North Front Street and others surrounding the park is valued at five point five million dollars.

====================