Tourism Ministry Talks About Plans to Rejuvenate Downtown

Albert Avila

Friday’s final in the History and Social Studies Quiz presented by the Belize City House of Culture and Downtown Rejuvenation Project is one in a series of intended projects to help promote the main project, which includes making the Old Capital’s history come alive. The project includes renovations to the old Government House to make it a Colonial Museum. There are also plans to emphasize the living history of Belize City from Fort George to Birds’ Isle and all the historic neighbourhoods therein. For more on how the project is going, we spoke with Community Liaison Albert Avila.

Albert Avila, Community Liaison, Downtown Rejuvenation Project

“The Belize City House of Culture and Downtown Rejuvenation Project vision is to improve on the socioeconomic integration of downtown Belize City. To put it simply it is bringing the community, the visitors and the business community together in downtown and that will rejuvenate and revitalize downtown Belize City. But in order to do that, we need to build on what downtown Belize City has to offer, which is our historic value, cultural heritage, economic activity and the community. The historic values are the historic buildings that are already there: the government house, the Anglican Cathedral, the Court house and the many colonial houses that are already in the downtown. The economic activity is already there because the downtown has always been the economic hub of Belize City so that is there. As far as the cultural heritage, we need to bring that in and the way we are going to bring in the cultural heritage is through an initiative called our eco-museum concept. An eco-museum is just an open museum. Where we have a museum that is an enclosed building, the eco-museum will be Albert Street and Regent Street. And the people that will be the display and so forth will be the community.”

The Project continues until 2018.