T&T has been short­chang­ing it­self for years through its ne­glect and mis­use of its old­er build­ings, ac­cord­ing to Ja­maican ar­chi­tec­tur­al de­sign­er, Chan Ash­ing.

He ques­tions the de­ci­sions made by gov­ern­ment af­ter gov­ern­ment, which have of­ten opt­ed to build new struc­tures while old build­ings are left to be­come di­lap­i­dat­ed.

This, he said, was par­tic­u­lar­ly a grow­ing trend in the city of Port-of-Spain.

“A lot of the prop­er­ties are un­der­utilised. And then fur­ther to that, we al­so have is­sues where the Gov­ern­ment does a lot of rentals when they could be util­is­ing these build­ings,” said Ash­ing, who re­cent­ly did the dis­ser­ta­tion for his Mas­ters study­ing prop­er­ties in Port-of-Spain and in par­tic­u­lar the Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en.

Ash­ing point­ed out that in his na­tive Ja­maica there had been a prece­dent that an an­tique build­ing could be adapt­ed for mod­ern use and be­come self-sus­tain­ing.

In T&T, he said there were build­ings such as the Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en and around the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah that sim­i­lar­ly could be adapt­ed and trans­formed in­to po­ten­tial rev­enue earn­ers.

“I made a com­par­i­son in my re­search be­tween Stollmey­er’s Cas­tle in Trinidad and De­von House in Ja­maica. They are sim­i­lar in terms of restora­tion,” he said. “De­von House is a unique prop­er­ty. But it is al­so prob­a­bly the best use in the Caribbean as an adap­tive reuse project be­cause the grounds are used to host events. There’s an in­vest­ment in terms of the culi­nary cul­ture and land­scape out here.”

Ash­ing added, while there have been in­stances where restora­tions in T&T have tak­en place, of­ten these restora­tions are done with­out a plan in place for the build­ing’s fu­ture use post-com­ple­tion.

“I be­lieve that when the Gov­ern­ment does fund these projects, they’re fund­ing it as a restora­tion and not look­ing at it as a reuse. Rather it’s we’ll fund it, we’ll re­store it and then we’re go­ing to fig­ure out what we’re go­ing to do with it,” said Ash­ing.

“One of the main is­sues is es­tab­lish­ing a use for it be­fore­hand be­fore go­ing in­to in­vest in these projects. And hav­ing es­tab­lished what the use will be, then you can retro­fit to suit that,” he said.

This was par­tic­u­lar­ly frus­trat­ing for him, as he had not­ed that the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny of T&T (Ude­cott) had shown the abil­i­ty to do restora­tions, yet in many cas­es, their work was un­der­mined by a lack of fu­ture plan­ning.

He not­ed that giv­en this propen­si­ty to re­store or re­new build­ings, Ude­cott iron­i­cal­ly has an­nounced plans to con­struct a new build­ing for its head­quar­ters. This is set to be built at Queen’s Park East be­tween Cadiz Road and Bel­mont Cir­cu­lar Road, a short dis­tance away from the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board (NIB) head­quar­ters.

“In terms of Ude­cott and what they’re do­ing, Ude­cott is no stranger to adap­tive reuse, you know, or even restora­tion for that mat­ter. They’ve done Knowsley’s Res­i­dence, Red House, Stollmey­er’s (Cas­tle), Pres­i­dent’s Cot­tage, Mille Fleurs.

“They have plen­ty of reper­toires (in restora­tion). So in terms of build­ing new, it does seem like a slap in the face. Be­cause they have all these projects. They are aware of the Gov­ern­ment prop­er­ties that could be re­stored and they could utilise it.”

He ac­knowl­edged that while Ude­cott ex­plained in their pro­pos­al for the new head­quar­ters that it in­tend­ed to en­sure that all of its units could be housed at the head­quar­ters, Ash­ing felt that oth­er un­der­used or dis­card­ed build­ings could have been used at a frac­tion of the cost.

“The re­al­i­ty of it is, there could be a bet­ter use of these and oth­er prop­er­ties. They could do mul­ti­ple lo­ca­tions for the cost that they would spend build­ing this new fa­cil­i­ty.

“They could retro­fit sev­er­al prop­er­ties around the Sa­van­nah or even you know down­town Port-of-Spain and utilise those in­stead,” he said. “They could do mul­ti­ple lo­ca­tions for the cost that they would spend build­ing this new fa­cil­i­ty. They could retro­fit sev­er­al prop­er­ties around the Sa­van­nah or even you know down­town Port-of-Spain and utilise those in­stead.”

He al­so felt the con­tin­u­ous de­ci­sion to ig­nore old­er build­ings in Port-of-Spain in­stead of restor­ing them and up­dat­ing them for mod­ern use will in the long run rob the city of its iden­ti­ty.

Last month, Port-of-Spain May­or Joel Mar­tinez ad­mit­ted that there were sev­er­al va­cant build­ings in down­town Port-of- Spain.

The may­or said he had hoped that some of these build­ings would be con­vert­ed for res­i­den­tial or hy­brid use to help re-ig­nite ac­tiv­i­ty in the city. How­ev­er, the may­or said a ma­jor ob­sta­cle to this so far had been the re­luc­tance of own­ers of down­town prop­er­ty and spaces to sell or con­vert their prop­er­ties for such pur­pos­es.

Ash­ing agreed with the sug­ges­tion and al­so felt that do­ing this al­so could po­ten­tial­ly save the city mil­lions as op­posed to plans to break down these build­ings, as had been done with the build­ings in East Port-of-Spain, to con­struct brand new struc­tures.

“You can most def­i­nite­ly retro­fit them. Well, you can adap­tive­ly reuse them, mix up both com­mer­cial and res­i­den­tial and es­pe­cial­ly if they’re mul­ti-sto­ry build­ings. It’s like you’re say­ing they’re just build­ings...like this is a par­tic­u­lar charm that may add to, you know, the charm of the street or the area,” said Ash­ing,

“A lot of de­vel­op­ers, a lot of peo­ple who tack­le these projects, they look at it as I’m gonna knock this down and go­ing to put a high rise. I can see how that can solve or rem­e­dy the hous­ing cri­sis to an ex­tent, but you lose the charm and char­ac­ter of the street or the city or wher­ev­er you’re do­ing this.

“So I would say that if we look at the ex­am­ples in the Unit­ed King­dom, where they do that hy­bridi­s­a­tion where it’s like you have the charm of the old and then you add on to it be­cause you don’t have so many re­stric­tions be­cause it’s not a his­toric build­ing. Then yes, you can keep the com­mer­cial, but you can put the res­i­den­tial to the back, so the com­mer­cial (as­pect) or the frontage keeps that charm. You re­duce your costs in terms of build­ing new and then you can still add on­to the back. That’s ad­di­tive adap­tive reuse.”

He, how­ev­er, did ac­knowl­edge that restora­tion could in some cas­es be just as cost­ly, if not more cost­ly, de­pend­ing on the state of dis­re­pair or work re­quired to up­date the build­ing.

The ar­chi­tec­tur­al de­sign­er was al­so wary that in many cas­es these build­ings are left to rot for po­lit­i­cal rea­sons as well, leav­ing the coun­try in a loop of wastage which is, in essence, cre­at­ed by the elec­toral cy­cle.

Still, he feels there is enough in place for Port-of-Spain to max­imise these spaces while sav­ing mil­lions on con­struc­tion costs.