Contract signed for new U.S. Embassy in BMP.

For the last two decades the United States government has been talking about building a new embassy in Belmopan to replace the charming, but hopelessly vulnerable old house on Gabourel Lane…and now it finally looks like it’s going to happen. In a press release issued today the embassy announced that a construction contract has been awarded to the Fluor Corporation with groundbreaking to take place early in 2005. Price for the building complex, located on ten acres near the British High Commission, is set at just under forty-nine million U.S. dollars. While no doubt some portion of this healthy budget will find its way into the pockets of Belizean subcontractors and workers, the downside is that once the facility opens there will be no more U.S. consulate in Belize City. That means visa applicants, in addition to paying two hundred dollars up front, will now also have to factor in a trip to the nation’s capital. Construction of the embassy is scheduled to take twenty-one months. Fluor Corporation is one of the world’s largest construction and engineering companies.