Rhon­dor Dowlat

Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon says she wel­comes busi­ness­man's Derek Chin's $1 bil­lion In­vad­er's Bay De­vel­op­ment Project, Streets of the World, and Gov­ern­ment is will­ing to meet with him about the long-de­layed project.

The project, to be de­vel­oped by Chin's com­pa­ny, Dachin En­ter­pris­es, has been crit­i­cised by pres­i­dent of the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil (JCC) Afra Ray­mond who claims it is in breach of Cen­tral Ten­ders Board reg­u­la­tions. He said the Re­quest for Pro­pos­als (RFP) process used in Au­gust 2011 by the Min­istry of Plan­ning and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment was im­prop­er and void­able since the as­sess­ment rules were pub­lished one month af­ter the clos­ing date.

In re­sponse to the JCC's con­cern, then Plan­ning Min­is­ter Dr Bhoe Tewarie had re­peat­ed­ly claimed that the le­gal ad­vice was that the min­istry was in con­for­mi­ty with the law.

Gopee-Scoon told the T&T Guardian that be­cause of what was said about the project over the years, the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion will have to do a de­tailed re­view and analy­sis.

"This needs to be done to en­sure that it is work­able and meets with all re­quire­ments but we are very open to dis­cus­sions with Mr Chin on this. We will have an au­di­ence with him as a po­ten­tial pri­vate in­vestor. We, the gov­ern­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly sup­port the pri­vate sec­tor," she said.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day for com­ment, Chin said he was grate­ful for a fair hear­ing from the gov­ern­ment and will make con­tact with Gopee-Scoon up­on his re­turn from a busi­ness trip to Asia.

Chin said the Streets of the World project will con­sist of 22 acres of ul­ti­mate des­ti­na­tion, ap­peal­ing to the en­tire Caribbean. Of­fi­cials of Dis­ney and Het­tema Group, who spe­cialise in unique­ly cre­ative de­signs for theme parks, mu­se­ums and cul­tur­al at­trac­tions, have al­ready vis­it­ed T&T and held ex­ten­sive dis­cus­sions with Chin on the project.

The on­ly ob­sta­cle in the way for Chin is the sign­ing of the pa­pers to ac­quire ten acres of land al­lot­ted to Dachin En­ter­pris­es so that con­struc­tion can be­gin.

"Dis­ney and Het­tema are now wait­ing on me to get pos­ses­sion of the land. When that hap­pens, I will start to bring in the in­vestors. I have a lot of peo­ple on the side that are in­ter­est­ed in this project, in­clud­ing Co­ca Co­la and M&M, who will both put up stores," Chin said.

One of the main at­trac­tions will be the Main Street, a re-cre­ation of Fred­er­ick Street, down­town Port-of-Spain, in the 1930s com­plete with a tram car. Chin ex­plained that the streets will re­flect the rich cul­ture of Trinidad and there will be a Madame Tus­saud's Wax Mu­se­um high­light­ing T&T's Car­ni­val and its his­to­ry, the his­to­ry of the steel­pan and ca­lyp­so.

Steel­pan icon Ray Hol­man said he be­lieves it will be a won­der­ful and de­sir­able project in T&T.

"It would cer­tain­ly lift the im­age of T&T and it would make peo­ple feel good. I would wel­come it be­cause it sounds in­ter­est­ing and it will add to the city and en­vi­rons. Re­cap­tur­ing the past is al­ways good, just as they did it in the Unit­ed States, with the vil­lage called Williams­burg, where they re-cre­at­ed hous­es from cen­turies ago," he said.

"We need to pre­serve our rich his­to­ry and cul­ture here in T&T and if Chin is go­ing to do this it would en­hance the qual­i­ty of life. There are some con­cerns though, with every­thing there are pros and cons and all these are pros, so what could be the cons? But, when Movie Towne was be­ing con­struct­ed at In­vad­er's Bay there were pros and cons al­so and a lot of con­cerns but we have seen it as one of the most suc­cess­ful busi­ness­es in the city, so I guess we will have to see what hap­pens to Mr Chin's project," he said.

T&T's cul­ture in spot­light

There are al­so plans for a live en­ter­tain­ment the­atre on the site. Al­so, dif­fer­ent streets high­light­ing the dif­fer­ent cul­tures of all the peo­ple that came to T&T and set­tled in­clud­ing the In­di­ans, Chi­nese, Africans, Eu­ro­peans and Syr­i­ans.

The de­vel­op­ment would al­so in­cor­po­rate an aquar­i­um fea­tur­ing the leatherback tur­tles, fish­es of the Caribbean and a coral reef.

There will al­so be a Fer­ris wheel and a Movi­eTowne Eye, which is sim­i­lar to the Or­lan­do Eye.