Rapheal John-Lall

?The new $30 mil­lion mul­ti-storey car park to be built on Cha­con Street, Port-of-Spain by the Nicholas Group comes at an im­por­tant time, Plan­ning Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is said yes­ter­day.

"We are heart­ened by the fact that you are in­vest­ing $30 mil­lion in this and what you have deemed a land mark for Port-of-Spain. We know that park­ing is an is­sue for this city and we are hap­py that you are mak­ing this time­ly in­vest­ment and we look for­ward to the day when the car park is com­plet­ed," she said yes­ter­day at the launch of the project.

The car park is due to be com­plet­ed in Ju­ly 2017 and will ac­com­mo­date 200 ve­hi­cles.

Robin­son-Reg­is said Port-of-Spain needs to be re­vi­talised and the Nicholas Group has made its con­tri­bu­tion in chang­ing the city's land­scape for the bet­ter.

"It has been very ef­fec­tive and very sig­nif­i­cant. As a mem­ber of the Gov­ern­ment, we want to see the de­vel­op­ment of Port-of-Spain. On this oc­ca­sion de­spite the fact that the for­tunes are not as pos­i­tive, our in­ten­tion is to en­sure that Port-of-Spain is re­vi­talised and de­vel­oped."

The min­is­ter al­so re­ferred to the first bud­get speech by Colm Im­bert, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance who ex­tend­ed tax cred­its for the build­ing of car parks to 2022.

"That is one of the in­cen­tives that has led to Mr Nicholas be­ing able to con­struct the car park at that cost in this city. We have had oth­er busi­ness peo­ple who are com­ing for­ward, like Fur­ness which al­so opened a car park re­cent­ly and it is be­cause of the tax cred­it," she said.

Is­sa Nicholas, chair­man of the Nicholas Group said he feels proud of the $30 mil­lion in­vest­ment in a car park to in the mid­dle of Port-of-Spain and said it was the fifth of its kind to be built by the group in the city.

"I ex­pect this to be a new land­mark," he said.