WORK on the $75M first phase of the four-storey administrative building at City Hall is closer to realisation with the project expected to go to tender soon.

The project is being done as part of the infrastructural ventures catered for under the $300M allocated by the Ministry of Communities (MoC) for the Georgetown Restoration Programme, which focuses on projects submitted by the Georgetown Mayor and City Council (M&CC) for the relocation of departments within the municipality.

MoC Coordinator of the Engineering Services, Naeem Khan explained that the $75M represents just a fraction of the overall cost that the project is scheduled to incur. “We are going to tender for this probably in the next two weeks’ time. It’s a multi-year project; it will roll over to next year. It has to be in a phased approach, so this would be considered to be the first phase with this initial budget, which is $75M for construction of an ‘admin’ for the M&CC. This will be built next to where the Mayor’s office is. There’s an existing foundation that is already built in the south-eastern corner,” Khan explained.
He noted that the foundation for the building is already in place, and that the $75M is expected to be used to put up the steel structure of the building.

The new building will be located in the south-eastern corner of the City Hall’s compound, and once completed, will have an elevator, a room for the holding of statutory meetings, in addition to all of the other vital administrative departments.

With the current City Hall building continuously deteriorating, there have been increasing calls for staff to be removed from operating in the dilapidated building. City Mayor, Ubraj Narine, last month noted that fungus is taking over the walls and ceiling of the Treasury Department. This resulted in at least one employee becoming “terribly ill”. He told city councillors that the employees in that department are working in an unhealthy environment, which poses a hazard to their lives.

The decision was taken to construct a new building in the compound to temporarily house the administration departments until rehabilitative works could begin on the badly-deteriorated City Hall.

The Georgetown City Hall is considered one of Georgetown’s most iconic and outstanding buildings, but with the structure continuously deteriorating over the years, there has been many calls for it to be rehabilitated. The restoration of the building is estimated to cost some $400M.

The Georgetown City Hall building is 130 years old as of July 01.