New entrance dedicated for Belmopan
Call it the Garden City, the City of Promise or just plain Belmopan, the nation’s capital, at age thirty-three, is finally on a roll. Today, as part of its annual celebrations, a new entrance was officially inaugurated.
Patrick Jones, Reporting
More than just bearing the name of the country’s most influential political figure, the George Price Boulevard is an important link to the development of the nation’s capital.
Anthony Chanona, Belmopan Mayor
“The road was constructed with the help of the private sector, but it is also going to provide access to the industrial park, which has eighty people employed, potential for four hundred. It’s going to create access to the herpetarium, a brand new venture, the Hector Silva Airstrip, the Habet Project. But more importantly, in times of national emergencies it is going to take a lot of traffic off from the Forest Drive/Constitution Drive. And so it’s a brand new access for the City of Belmopan. Half of it is built, it’s a hundred foot boulevard; we were only able to build half, but that will do for the time being.”
And the man whose idea it was to pioneer Belmopan out of what was at the time dense jungle, likes what he sees.
George Price, Father of the Nation
“And everything looks well. We must keep on going, working to make it still better. So a happy birthday, a happy Belmopan day to all.”
Patrick Jones
“Thirty-three years after you established Belmopan, are you happy with the development?”
George Price
“Yes I am. In some cases it’s bigger than I expected and there is still more to come as the country grows, the population.”
Patrick Jones
“They just dedicated a Boulevard in your honour, how do feel about that?”
George Price
“Well you feel that they should have been, maybe like the People’s United Party and the People’s Boulevard, because they are the ones that did it, not no person; no single person did it.”
And while no one person can take credit for building Belmopan, Chanona says it is that same spirit of community participation that will take the city to the next level.
Anthony Chanona
“It’s important to create jobs to sustain a city’s growth. You can’t just be laying out capital without creating wealth. And therefore we’ve made quite an overture to the private sector, both local and foreign, making land available at very good incentives, very good incentives to attract investment. And if we are able to succeed, by the grace of God, we have over thirty million dollars in the pipe-line, hopefully it will come about over the next three years.”
With a population of ten thousand residents and roughly sixteen thousand people passing through daily, the Mayor says the City Council already has an idea of where it thinks Belmopan should go.
Anthony Chanona
“We see a city of twenty-five thousand residents. By design Belmopan has a green belt around it, we don’t see a city beyond twenty-five thousand. We see a city serving fifty thousand people, so we see a small, sprawling, verdant city where you should have some space. We won’t be the metropolis. We will be of a different design and so we’re trying to put in place the infrastructure to ensure that we keep this Garden City urban sprawl, low-keyed, not heavy impact, high impact. That’s where we see Belmopan going over the next twenty years.”
Part of that development plan is a new market to replace this building that has been here since 1968. Chanona says that with the passage of time, this facility has long outgrown its usefulness.
Anthony Chanona
“We’ll be taking down this structure. The firm of JEBCO was awarded the contract after competitive bidding.”
Patrick Jones
“Vendors will be relocated to a temporary facility across the way from the old structure, while the new Belmopan Market is being built. One hundred and twenty days after the first block is laid, the Mayor says a modern, sprawling facility will grace the central commercial area of the capital. In Belmopan, Patrick Jones, for News 5.”
