{"id":2395,"date":"2019-06-07T19:55:24","date_gmt":"2019-06-07T19:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=2395"},"modified":"2019-06-07T19:55:34","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T19:55:34","slug":"4-storey-fire-station-for-mobay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=2395","title":{"rendered":"4-storey fire station for MoBay"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Barrington Flemming<\/strong> – Staff Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With residents and\ncity officials clamouring for more than a decade for a new fire station,\ngovernment finally heeded  to their call,\nas ground was broken yesterday at Barnett Street, Montego Bay, for the\nconstruction of a $534 million new state-of-the-art facility.  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Local Government Minister, Desmond McKenzie, in the\nmeantime, has warned construction company, Pave-Con Limited of Mandeville, to\nbe swift and efficient in constructing the long-awaited facility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The construction company has been awarded the contract to\nbuild the new facility which will replace the former fire brigade building that\nwas demolished in 2006 on the instruction of the St. James Health Department,\nafter it was deemed unfit for human habitation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rawle Dias, Project Manager of Pave\u2013Con, in explaining the\nscope of work, said the building would be four storey and would require the use\nof piles (A pile is basically a long cylinder of a strong material such as\nconcrete that is pushed into the ground to act as a steady support for\nstructures built on top of it), based on its proximity to the sea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe building will have a truck bay on the ground floor in the centre; it will have accommodations, offices, water storage facility for the fire trucks, as all other structures. It is a 12-month project and once we keep on schedule, we should be on time, but we aim to beat the schedule and to remain within budget,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Stakeholders discuss aspects of the design with Managing Director of JSIF, Omar Sweeney (left), explaining to Minister Henry how the different stages of construction will commence. In the background are Stewart Beckford, Commissioner, Jamaica Fire Brigade; Rupert Pryce, Senior Director, Parochial Revenue Fund, and Mayor Homer Davis (right)<\/em><\/strong> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

TRANSFORMATION OF MONTEGO BAY<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rupert Pryce, Senior Director of Parochial Revenue Fund\nBranch in the Local Government Ministry, who delivered Minister McKenzie\u2019s\nmessage, indicated that ground-breaking for the construction of the new\nfacility represents another step in the transformation of Montego Bay as a\ncontemporary city with amenities that befit its city status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe elected representatives are watching keenly and the\nelectors themselves are observing the execution of this project,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Citing that 65 percent of all fire stations across the\nisland were in need of rehabilitation, Mr. Pryce said that while the Montego\nBay fire station would be under construction, the Falmouth fire station would\nbe rehabilitated at a cost of 10 million dollars, while 8 million dollars would\nbe used to rehabilitate the Negril fire station.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For his part, Mike Henry, Minister without Portfolio in the\noffice of Prime Minister, while charging Pave-Con to deliver the project on\ntime and within budget, said the new fire station was important as it would\nhouse 145 fire fighters and grant them the ability to effectively fulfill their\nmandate to protect and save citizens within the 78 communities they serve. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fire fighters are being housed at a temporary facility\nat Freeport and premises at Fort Street. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

SATELLITE STATIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor of Montego Bay, Councillor Homer Davis, in expressing\nhis happiness that at long last the city was getting its new Fire Brigade\nbuilding, reiterated his call for three satellite stations to be constructed in\nrural Jamaica to facility rapid response from the fire service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He called for the multi-agency stations to be established at\nMaroon Town, Cambridge and Adelphi, arguing that 40 percent of the population\nof St. James resides in rural communities, who are too far away for effective\nresponse from the Barnett Street and Ironshore locations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Barnett Street Fire Station project is being implemented\nby the Jamaica Social Investment Fund\u2019s Disaster Vulnerability Reduction\nProject, DVRP, which is being funded by a $30 million US loan from the World\nBank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With residents and city officials clamouring for more than a decade for a new fire station, government finally heeded to their call, as ground was broken yesterday at Barnett Street, Montego Bay, for the construction of a $534 million new state-of-the-art facility. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1300],"class_list":["post-2395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-fire-station"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2395"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2398,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2395\/revisions\/2398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}