In a dri­ve to at­tract more vis­i­tors and in­vestors to the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo, the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (Ude­cott) is un­der­tak­ing a $56 mil­lion im­prove­ment of the 7.2-acre fa­cil­i­ty, which is lo­cat­ed north of Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah and west of the Botan­i­cal Gar­dens.

On its web­site last week, Ude­cott said the Cab­i­net is­sued a man­date to Ude­cott for im­prove­ment and ex­pan­sion works at the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo.  

Part of the zoo-ex­pan­sion and im­prove­ment project is the con­struc­tion of a two-sto­ry build­ing with a floor area of 8,550 square feet. The struc­ture is to be called the Dis­cov­ery build­ing, the con­struc­tion of which is un­der­way.

“The foot­print of the build­ing was de­signed in the shape of a but­ter­fly and con­sists of an ex­hi­bi­tion cen­tre, cin­e­ma/the­atre, restau­rant, ice cream par­lour, cut­ters bar, con­fer­ence/meet­ing room, of­fices/in­for­ma­tion cen­tre, shops, kiosks and out­door din­ing, am­phithe­atre and chil­dren’s play area,” Ude­cott said.

The com­ple­tion is due for the first quar­ter of 2025.

On Tues­day, a se­nior Ude­cott of­fi­cial said the es­ti­mat­ed cost of con­struc­tion, fur­ni­ture, fin­ish­ing, and equip­ment is $56,265,878.14 VAT ex­clu­sive.

Speak­ing to the Busi­ness Guardian on the fund­ing of the project, Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, said she is proud to have her Min­istry col­lab­o­rate with the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries and Ude­cott on this project.

Beck­les said the project is part of a 2015 Cab­i­net de­ci­sion to have the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture lead the ex­pan­sion and de­vel­op­ment of the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo in­to a mod­ern, first rate fa­cil­i­ty pro­mot­ing tourism, lo­cal busi­ness, ed­u­ca­tion, en­vi­ron­men­tal aware­ness and bio­di­ver­si­ty man­age­ment.

“The de­ci­sion was made to bol­ster the aim of fur­ther­ing the ini­tial zoo ex­pan­sion project to ex­ceed the ex­pec­ta­tions of lo­cals and tourists by be­com­ing a high­ly de­sired world-class des­ti­na­tion for per­sons look­ing for recre­ation­al, ed­u­ca­tion­al and en­tre­pre­neur­ial op­por­tu­ni­ties in T&T,” Beck­les said.

She said the de­vel­op­ment of the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo al­so falls in line with the main goal of the PSIP to fund medi­um-term de­vel­op­men­tal pri­or­i­ties to cre­ate the en­vi­ron­ment that will en­able di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of the econ­o­my, im­prove so­cial con­di­tions to achieve Gov­ern­ment’s na­tion­al so­cio-eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment ob­jec­tives.

The con­struc­tion is be­ing fi­nanced from the gen­er­al rev­enues un­der the Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme (PSIP).

She said in se­lect­ing the project for PSIP fund­ing, the min­istry, which has over­sight of the PSIP, worked with the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture Land and Fish­eries to en­sure that the projects were aligned with some of the goals of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Strat­e­gy, Vi­sion 2030 and these in­clude:

Theme IV – Build­ing Glob­al­ly Com­pet­i­tive Busi­ness­es; and Theme V – Plac­ing the En­vi­ron­ment at the Cen­tre of So­cial and Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment.

Fur­ther, the min­is­ter not­ed that fig­ures in­di­cate that the vis­i­tor count to the Zoo pre-COVID was in the vicin­i­ty of 250,000 an­nu­al­ly and this project is aimed at dri­ving an in­crease in num­bers with the added fa­cil­i­ties of a cin­e­ma, am­phithe­atre, of­fices, shops, restau­rants as well as an ice cream par­lour, chil­dren’s play area and more.

The con­struc­tion of con­fer­ence and meet­ing rooms would al­so at­tract a broad range of clients and cus­tomers, fur­ther adding to the val­ue of the fa­cil­i­ty.

She said the project will serve the needs of the trav­el­ling pub­lic, which is fa­cil­i­tat­ed by the easy ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty of the zoo, as over 40 per cent of the per­sons com­ing to the fa­cil­i­ty use pub­lic trans­porta­tion.

This, Beck­les in­di­cat­ed will pro­vide a safe and se­cure site, which at­tracts fam­i­lies and, with the up­grade, it will be­come even more de­sir­able for fam­i­ly out­ings.

In 2013, the first phase of the up­grade was done un­der the 2010 to 2015 ad­min­is­tra­tion.

The Busi­ness Guardian spoke to busi­ness­men who wished not to be named at this time. They both said this ex­pan­sion of the zoo with the var­i­ous ameni­ties is need­ed to keep con­stant rev­enue com­ing in­to the fa­cil­i­ty.

One of the busi­ness­men said the idea of shops, restau­rants, and a cut­ters bars is in­no­v­a­tive as peo­ple are al­ways look­ing for new and safe spots to hang out.

“The one thing I would hope is that the spaces to rent would not be ex­or­bi­tant for busi­ness own­ers, as that will be a hin­drance. Once the rent is fair, the prices for the cus­tomers will al­so be rea­son­able and it would be a win-win sit­u­a­tion for all,” the busi­ness own­er said.

The oth­er busi­ness­man said there must be ad­e­quate se­cu­ri­ty on the premis­es in light of in­creas­ing rob­beries at busi­ness places.

Asked what oth­er projects are go­ing to be un­der­tak­en by the Min­istry of Plan­ning un­der the Pub­lic Sec­tor in­vest­ment pro­gramme for 2024.

Beck­les said there are nine de­vel­op­ment pri­or­i­ty ar­eas un­der Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Strat­e­gy - Vi­sion 2030, for the pe­ri­od 2021-2025. The nine pri­or­i­ty ar­eas in­clude:

Pri­or­i­ty Area 1: Fos­ter­ing cit­i­zens safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty

Pri­or­i­ty Area 2: Pro­tect­ing the vul­ner­a­ble

Pri­or­i­ty Area 3: En­sur­ing food safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty

Pri­or­i­ty Area 4: Im­prov­ing pub­lic health

Pri­or­i­ty Area 5: Build­ing cli­mate and en­vi­ron­men­tal re­silience

Pri­or­i­ty Area 6: In­vest­ing in strate­gic sec­tors to cre­ate growth and jobs

Pri­or­i­ty Area 7: Cre­at­ing a dig­i­tal na­tion

Pri­or­i­ty Area 8: Ra­tio­nal­is­ing pub­lic in­vest­ment for greater ef­fi­cien­cy and ef­fec­tive­ness

Pri­or­i­ty Area 9: Eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery: build­ing lives and liveli­hoods

“So the ma­jor projects be­ing un­der­tak­en by the PSIP will re­flect the at­tain­ment of goals re­lat­ed to these nine ar­eas. What this shows is that the gov­ern­ment’s plans are tied to­geth­er in a struc­tured way con­nect­ing to cit­i­zens’ needs and na­tion­al goals for de­vel­op­ment,” the min­is­ter added.