An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

Movi­eTowne own­er Derek Chin said yes­ter­day he sub­mit­ted an up­grad­ed ver­sion of his Streets of the World con­cept to the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go Ltd (UDe­COTT) be­fore the in­vi­ta­tions for Ex­pres­sions of In­ter­est for the Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Blue­print closed yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia short­ly af­ter the sub­mis­sion, Chin de­scribed the move as a fi­nal push for a project ear­marked for In­vaders Bay that he has been ad­vo­cat­ing for more than a decade.

“I’ve tried since 2015. I de­cid­ed I’ll give it one more shot,” he said. “This is an up­grad­ed ver­sion of Streets of the World. I hon­est­ly think it’s one of the best projects for this coun­try.”

Un­like pro­pos­als fo­cused on com­mer­cial tow­ers, ho­tels or con­do­mini­ums, Chin’s vi­sion cen­tres on ex­pe­ri­ence-dri­ven tourism. Streets of the World is de­signed as a year-round cul­tur­al des­ti­na­tion, show­cas­ing T&T’s di­ver­si­ty through im­mer­sive spaces rather than tra­di­tion­al bricks-and-mor­tar de­vel­op­ment.

“What I’ve cre­at­ed is an ex­pe­ri­ence that would make peo­ple want to come to Trinidad,” he added. “It brings tourists, earns for­eign ex­change, and cre­ates a des­ti­na­tion.”

At the heart of the pro­pos­al are themed streets rep­re­sent­ing the cul­tures that have shaped the coun­try, in­clud­ing African, In­di­an, Chi­nese, Syr­i­an and oth­ers, each re­flect­ing the unique food, ar­chi­tec­ture, mu­sic and crafts of each cul­ture. An­chor­ing the de­vel­op­ment is a Car­ni­val Wax Mu­se­um, fea­tur­ing life-sized wax fig­ures of icon­ic mas­quer­ade cos­tumes, band­lead­ers and no­table na­tion­al fig­ures.

Plans al­so in­clude a world-class pa­n­yard and per­for­mance au­di­to­ri­um, an aquar­i­um fo­cused on ma­rine life and tur­tles, chil­dren’s play­grounds, cul­tur­al food courts and craft mar­kets. Horse-and-bug­gy rides and land­scaped park spaces round out the of­fer­ing.

Chin is al­so propos­ing Caribbean pavil­ions, invit­ing re­gion­al tourism boards such as Ja­maica, Bar­ba­dos, and An­tigua to con­struct show­case spaces, po­si­tion­ing Trinidad as a re­gion­al en­ter­tain­ment hub while keep­ing the pri­ma­ry fo­cus on lo­cal cul­ture.

“You want peo­ple to come and ex­pe­ri­ence Car­ni­val through­out the year,” he said. “This does that.”

The es­ti­mat­ed in­vest­ment for the project ap­proach­es US$800 mil­lion, with fi­nanc­ing to be sourced in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. Chin re­ject­ed the idea that up­front cap­i­tal must be se­cured be­fore ap­proval.
“You sell the idea first,” he ex­plained. “That’s how I built Movi­eTowne. I didn’t have the mon­ey up­front. Once the con­cept is re­al, in­vestors and banks come in.”
Chin ac­knowl­edged that Streets of the World was pre­vi­ous­ly pre­sent­ed to the Cab­i­net in 2015, when Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was Prime Min­is­ter, but be­came stalled.
“It got caught up in pol­i­tics and died on the shelf,” he said.

Since Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­turn to of­fice, Chin con­firmed that brief dis­cus­sions have tak­en place.

“She told me to go ahead and fol­low the process,” he said, adding that the project had re­ceived strong sup­port at the time.

Be­yond bricks and bal­ance sheets, Chin framed the sub­mis­sion as an act of pa­tri­o­tism.
“This is my na­tion­al­is­tic ap­proach,” he said.