$35M upgrade to Cabildo Place

SOME $35 million will be spent this year to retrofit the old office of the Attorney General known as Cabildo Chambers/Cabildo Place to serve as ancillary offices for the seat of Parliament in the renovated Red House.

The sum was revealed in budget documents, the Infrastructure Development Fund (IDF), while an explanation was given to Newsday yesterday by Udecott executive chairman Noel Garcia.

While the Red House will contain two chambers so both Upper and Lower Houses can sit simultaneously; plus offices for the Prime Minister, Opposition Leader and the two whips; and a dining room, other facilities will be located nearby in Cabildo Place on St Vincent Street, Port of Spain.

Garcia said this multi-storey building will contain Parliament’s communications and broadcast unit, offices for MPs and senators, meeting rooms and other ancillary facilities. He recalled that originally a parliamentary complex was to be built (on the site of the Defence Force office at Knox Street) at a cost of $350 million. “But this administration has decided instead to retrofit Cabildo Place to act in this role.”

Garcia made the point that Cabildo Place is not to be confused with the old Cabildo Building on Sackville Street – a small, 200-year-old historical building that was the seat of administration for Spanish Colonial Trinidad.

Otherwise, Newsday asked about the IDF’s $3 million allocation for the restoration of the Mille Fleurs building. While the fate of this historical building, one of the Magnificent Seven at Queens Park Savannah, lies within a recent report done by Cuban architects, Newsday asked if conservationists could take comfort from the fact an allocation has been made for its preservation. Garcia replied yes. However he said he could not reveal the report’s findings as he has prepared a note to Cabinet on it and does not want to pre-empt that.

The IDF overall allocated $97 million for public buildings. The biggest allocation was $40 million to restore President’s House, for which $10 million was spent last year and $2.2 million the year before. The IDF also allocated $14 million to restore Whitehall – a historical building once used as the prime minister’s office under Patrick Manning until 2009. Some $4.5 million was spent last year and $1 million the year before to restore Whitehall. Newsday last year reported Udecott’s Roxanne Stapleton saying the Office of the Prime Minister will be relocated from St Clair Avenue to Whitehall.