Directors of the Morant Bay Urban Centre Company Limited, this morning (Friday January 21, 2022) signed the loan agreement to facilitate the financing of the construction of the Morant Bay Urban Centre (MBUC).
The loan agreement is being facilitated through the National Commercial Bank, NCB.
Through this signing, the directors, Factories Corporation of Jamaica Limited, FCJ Chairman Lyttleton ‘Tanny’ Shirley and China Harbour Engineering Company Limited, CHEC Country Manager Dangran Bi, are now paving the way for construction activities to get underway at the old Goodyear factory facilities in Springfield, St Thomas.
Construction of this development is expected to commence in February 2022.
For the FCJ Chairman, this signing signal the beginning of a new dawn for the parish St Thomas, which has not experienced any major development in over 30 years.
According to Mr. Shirley, St Thomas will now benefit from economic growth through the development of the Morant Bay Urban Centre alongside the construction of the highway which is now underway.
“Not only as shareholders are we committed; we share the prosperity that we expect to see happening in St. Thomas – for the residents, for persons who have migrated from St. Thomas and want to return, for the people of Jamaica, because it will be a location that we all can be proud of. It will be symbolic to what should take place in all parishes across Jamaica,” said Mr. Shirley.
Ground was broken for the project in June 2019, however delays in securing all the requisite approvals resulted in the postponement in the start of construction. The FCJ Chairman has given the commitment to have the project completed within the specified 24 month-timeline and within budget.
According to Mr. Shirley, “the signing of the loan agreement will formalise and concretize the commitment to commence construction in February of 2022. To the residents of St Thomas, investors and stakeholders please note that in a few weeks, you will see a construction site ready and going with the highest commitment that you’ve ever seen taking place for a long time”.
For CHEC, the Morant Bay Urban Centre development will be the most successful project undertaken by them.
“We did ground-breaking three years ago … from my heart sincerely, I really thank the management team from FCJ for trusting CHEC to finish the technical things …I do confidently say, in the future this will be most successful project that we have done in this island” said CHEC Country Manager Dangran Bi.
The Morant Bay Urban Centre will see the amalgamation of services provided by the Government of Jamaica and the Private Sector through the creation of 436 thousand square feet of space.
Among the entities to take up space at the development are the St Thomas Municipal Corporation, the Ministry of Justice through the St Thomas Parish Court, all other government entities located in Morant Bay and several private sector companies to include KFC, Burger King and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies just to name a few.
