Since the Chetumal bridge was completed in early 2015, the surrounding land in the Lake Independence area, over 55 acres of it, has just been sitting there. Well, the Government has a plan for it. The government has been in discussions with Belize Infrastructure Limited and their partners for the past couple years until today, when they finally launched the master plan for what they call the Lake Independence Special Development Area. This area near the Chetumal bridge will be transformed into a business-commercial zone. But the Government wants to bring the private sector on board to come up with ideas for what facilities to build in this area and of course invest in the construction of these state of the art structures. We dropped by the launch to find out more about this mega project.
Christy Mastry- General Manager, BIL
"So, today what is happening is that Belize Infrastructure Limited, as of course an entity of the Government of Belize, is rolling out the master plan for Lake Independence. What that is now, there is going to be a legislative special development area. It is 50 acres of consolidated government land and the way we see we roll this out is that we started to subdivide the area into buildable parcels. And within those parcels there will be a mix of government buildings. One of the first, I think maybe people have heard being advertised, will be the Ministry of Finance Building. That will be a government built facility and it will house the Ministry of Finance and it's over 50 thousand gross square feet of new offices for the Ministry of Finance. After that, we have a few more parcels we plan to roll out for other government buildings and government consolidation of institutions but then we really want to bring the private sector to the table; 50 acres is a lot of acreage. Over the full build design, which could be anywhere from 5 to 10 years down the road, we are looking at almost half a million gross square feet of available land space. So, with that, it is really important to bring the private sector to the table. The way we see we do that is through a mix of different contractual arrangements; some through simple land leases, concessions for retail, commercial mix, food and beverage services. Others will be through much more developed private sector partnership, such as the national Belize terminal, which we've talked about for a really long time; and then other future buildings. Maybe there is another investor in the room today who really wants to build a building to house the BPO, to lease something out later on. So, bring the private sector to the table, let them use government land, let them be able to make money, create that revenue stream, but the government manages the entire master plan as an entity with standards and qualities that will be maintained through the legislation."
"So, really the reason we wanted to have this today is to get it out into the public. We want the private sector to start thinking about it. Within the next couple of months we will probably be putting out calls for proposals to hear from the private sector, what will they be interested in putting there. Because they also know the market. They know what they market will bear and they know where they can make money and what type of facilities will make money. So, for the government controlled properties, we certainly will be scripting what we expect from an investor. But from the private sector lease properties, we will invite them to the table and have them work on different proposals, which we can evaluate as far as certain criteria."
The emphasis is on that public-private sector partnership. In about 3 to 6 months, the team will be advertising for proposals from the private sector.
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