JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Tuesday, July 8, 2025

MovieTowne's Derek Chin to open T&T to the world

An en­ter­tain­ment mec­ca

by

20110706

Derek Chin, chair­man of the three Movi­eTowne cine­plex­es, is work­ing on an­oth­er mega project: Streets of the World. "If you thought Movi­eTowne was great, this will be greater. My next project is worth $1 bil­lion. The mon­ey is avail­able and I am ready to go. This is be­hind Movi­eTowne in In­vaders Bay where 80 acres of land is avail­able. We will take the cul­ture of a coun­try and make streets out of them." Chin an­nounced his next bil­lion-dol­lar project on June 22 at the Fourth Bi­en­ni­al In­ter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Busi­ness, Bank­ing and Fi­nance at the Hilton Trinidad ho­tel, St Ann's. Chin gave more de­tails at a fol­low-up in­ter­view on Mon­day at the Wood­brook of­fice of his com­pa­ny, Tele­com Sys­tems (Trinidad) Ltd.

Al­though he orig­i­nal­ly bud­get­ed the project to be less than $1 bil­lion, the even­tu­al cost will be much more. "We did the pre­lim­i­nary bud­get and the first bud­get came up to $780 mil­lion, but it's go­ing way past that." Chin gave a break­down of the bud­get. "We get ap­proval for the lands. Then we have the in­fra­struc­ture works, the drainage, the sew­er­age, the un­der­ground lines, elec­tri­cal con­nec­tions and util­i­ties. The in­fra­struc­ture works could cost a cou­ple hun­dred mil­lion." Add to those cost items plan­ning and build­ing. "As­sum­ing the build­ing is $1,200 per square feet, we have to come up with how many hun­dred thou­sand square feet it is and we mul­ti­ply it by the $1,200 square feet. That could be a bud­get of $500 mil­lion. We are talk­ing about build­ing a city, af­ter all."

The em­ploy­ment ben­e­fits will be huge, said Chin, ever the en­tre­pre­neur, who on­ly on June 29 for­mal­ly opened Texas de Brazile at Fi­es­ta Plaza, Movi­eTowne, Au­drey Jef­fers High­way. This restau­rant and Ru­by Tues­day are owned by the fam­i­ly com­pa­ny, Da Chin En­ter­pris­es. "I think we will gen­er­ate 10,000 plus in di­rect em­ploy­ment. The con­struc­tion is go­ing to be mas­sive," he said. Chin is con­sid­er­ing all fi­nanc­ing op­tions. "Right now, we are look­ing at float­ing a bond to seek the fund­ing to do oth­er things. There are for­eign in­vestors who like the idea and are will­ing to come to T&T and un­der­write it. Some of them want to build the whole thing and just rent it out, but I don't want to give up the lo­cal part of it."

He is con­sid­er­ing one se­ri­ous in­vestor from Venezuela who will pro­vide fund­ing for the project.

"At this time, I won't give the name of this po­ten­tial in­vestor." Venezuela is well known for the con­struc­tion of huge malls. For in­stance, the five-lev­el Sam­bil Mall in Cara­cas, Venezuela, is the fourth largest mall in Latin Amer­i­ca.

Streets of the World

Derek Chin wants to take cul­tures from around the world and cre­ate a street af­ter them. "There would be a Street of Mum­bai, a Street of Hong Kong, a Street of the Mid­dle East, a Street of Africa, and so on. There would be a fash­ion street for women. There would be a mi­ni-car­ni­val street, which (Car­ni­val band­leader Bri­an) Mc­Far­lane would be in­volved in. These streets would be the­mat­ic streets." There would be ad­di­tion­al at­trac­tions, like horse and bug­gy. "Maybe from the (Queen's Park) Sa­van­nah through Wood­brook straight to the Streets of the World, tourists would trav­el on them."

Chin al­so has plans to de­vel­op a Car­ni­val mu­se­um. "In 2011, what have we done with Car­ni­val? We are still build­ing a Grand­stand in 2011. What is the lega­cy of Car­ni­val? The an­swer to that is noth­ing. Let's build a Car­ni­val mu­se­um in wax. Bring them out and show the world all the eras of Car­ni­val." He said a tourists com­ing off a ship could spend two hours and spend US$50 look­ing at T&T's Car­ni­val.

He wants the Streets of the World project to be an en­ter­tain­ment mec­ca that would draw tourists from all over. "We are go­ing to cre­ate this lit­tle mec­ca, so there would be Movi­eTowne, Streets of the World, Car­ni­val and every­thing else in one. We will take T&T and make it a great tourist des­ti­na­tion. "In the rest of the Caribbean, you see sail­ing, crick­et and oth­er things. Yet in T&T, we are not sell­ing the coun­try."

Bu­reau­cra­cy

Chin has met with the Prime Min­is­ter and many gov­ern­ment min­is­ters seek­ing ap­proval for this project.

Be­fore Christ­mas 2010, he had a meet­ing with the Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er, For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan, and oth­er min­is­ters, at the Prime Min­is­ter's Of­fice. They all sup­port­ed his plans. "I have been lob­by­ing the Gov­ern­ment for a year now, even be­fore the elec­tions. I sent in the pre­lim­i­nary sketch­es about the con­cept; I met 19 Cab­i­net min­is­ters over the last six months. The next min­is­ter I am meet­ing is Bhoe Tewarie, Min­is­ter of Plan­ning. He wants to see me. I al­so met with Jear­lean John, Ude­cott chair­man. She al­so loves it, but that was three to four months ago.

"So I con­tin­ue to de­vel­op in terms of the ar­chi­tec­ture, the fi­nan­cial as­pect, pro­vid­ing the prop­er mod­els, so it reach­es a stage when I make a for­mal pre­sen­ta­tion, it will be in a com­plet­ed form. Up to when I met the min­is­ters a few months ago, I was still de­vel­op­ing the plan." He even en­list­ed the help of Jim Gar­ber, an Amer­i­can ar­chi­tect de­sign­er, who has done work for Dis­ney World. Gar­ber came to T&T last week Tues­day to help Chin en­hance some of the plans for Streets of the World. "I have spent about $2.5 mil­lion so far in get­ting the plans alone with­out any com­mit­ment from any­body. So talk about risks. This is what the coun­try needs." Chin is hope­ful of get­ting ap­proval this year.

"I would like to get the Gov­ern­ment's ap­proval this year. Once we get that, it should take about four years to com­plete. That land has been sit­ting there for al­most ten years and it's now an over­grown for­est. Noth­ing's go­ing on there." Chin com­plained that it is dif­fi­cult do­ing busi­ness in T&T. "I went with the Prime Min­is­ter to Eng­land to woo in­vestors and I had to lie. It is not easy do­ing busi­ness in T&T. In this coun­try, they look at suc­cess­ful busi­ness peo­ple as bad, not re­al­is­ing you hire and em­ploy 2,000 or 3,000 peo­ple."

Se­cu­ri­ty at Movi­eTowne

Derek Chin spoke about the chal­lenge of main­tain­ing se­cu­ri­ty at Movi­eTowne, which has be­come a con­cern in light of an at­tempt­ed car­jack­ing of a cou­ple's car at the traf­fic lights at the Au­drey Jef­fers High­way, out­side the cine­plex, on June 18. Chin said man­ag­ing and en­sur­ing that a large vol­ume of peo­ple is safe is an on­go­ing chal­lenge. "Last week­end, last Sat­ur­day, there was 6,500 peo­ple in Port-of-Spain, over 5,000 in Ch­agua­nas and 1,200 in To­ba­go in one day. Sat­ur­day and Sun­day were a record in Ch­agua­nas, which was 12,000 peo­ple and these were just peo­ple who paid."

"You have 30,000 to 40,000 peo­ple every week­end at Movi­eTowne. We do it every­day, sev­en days a week. It's a lot of pres­sure. Our num­bers last Ju­ly for peo­ple who paid were 131,000 peo­ple. And these are not even the vis­i­tors who did not pay." Chin has de­scribed this lat­est in­ci­dent a "scam," say­ing there is no ev­i­dence to prove that the in­ci­dent the cou­ple re­port­ed to Movi­eTowne took place. Po­lice are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions. "It took me 33 years of hard work to reach here and peo­ple are try­ing to bring me down."


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored

Today's
Guardian

Publications

A model in a costume from The Lost Tribe’s 2026 presentation Island Circus

A model in a costume from The Lost Tribe’s 2026 presentation Island Circus

KERWIN PIERRE

A model in a costume from The Lost Tribe’s 2026 presentation Island Circus

A model in a costume from The Lost Tribe’s 2026 presentation Island Circus

KERWIN PIERRE

Ringmasters of the Road: Crowds flock to Tribe’s circus-themed band launch

14 hours ago
Students, principal and staff of St David’s RC Primary, along with the UWTT and Scotiabank Foundation teams at the handover of steelpans at the school.

Students, principal and staff of St David’s RC Primary, along with the UWTT and Scotiabank Foundation teams at the handover of steelpans at the school.

Students, principal and staff of St David’s RC Primary, along with the UWTT and Scotiabank Foundation teams at the handover of steelpans at the school.

Students, principal and staff of St David’s RC Primary, along with the UWTT and Scotiabank Foundation teams at the handover of steelpans at the school.

Scotiabank Foundation, United Way donate steelpans

14 hours ago
The Executive of the National Parang Association 2025-27. Back row, from left: Kervin Preudhomme, assistant secretary; Shaquille Headley, committee member; Cheriese Pierre, committee member; Lisa Lee, trustee; Joanne Briggs, PRO; Yarelis Touissant, committee member; William Calliste, trustee. Front row, from left: Jenais Carter, secretary; Alicia Jaggasar, president; Henrietta Carter, vice president; Joseph Bertrand, youth officer. Missing: Kerrylee Chee Chow, treasurer; Chevone Pierre, committee member.

The Executive of the National Parang Association 2025-27. Back row, from left: Kervin Preudhomme, assistant secretary; Shaquille Headley, committee member; Cheriese Pierre, committee member; Lisa Lee, trustee; Joanne Briggs, PRO; Yarelis Touissant, committee member; William Calliste, trustee. Front row, from left: Jenais Carter, secretary; Alicia Jaggasar, president; Henrietta Carter, vice president; Joseph Bertrand, youth officer. Missing: Kerrylee Chee Chow, treasurer; Chevone Pierre, committee member.

The Executive of the National Parang Association 2025-27. Back row, from left: Kervin Preudhomme, assistant secretary; Shaquille Headley, committee member; Cheriese Pierre, committee member; Lisa Lee, trustee; Joanne Briggs, PRO; Yarelis Touissant, committee member; William Calliste, trustee. Front row, from left: Jenais Carter, secretary; Alicia Jaggasar, president; Henrietta Carter, vice president; Joseph Bertrand, youth officer. Missing: Kerrylee Chee Chow, treasurer; Chevone Pierre, committee member.

The Executive of the National Parang Association 2025-27. Back row, from left: Kervin Preudhomme, assistant secretary; Shaquille Headley, committee member; Cheriese Pierre, committee member; Lisa Lee, trustee; Joanne Briggs, PRO; Yarelis Touissant, committee member; William Calliste, trustee. Front row, from left: Jenais Carter, secretary; Alicia Jaggasar, president; Henrietta Carter, vice president; Joseph Bertrand, youth officer. Missing: Kerrylee Chee Chow, treasurer; Chevone Pierre, committee member.

Jaggasar returns as National Parang president

Yesterday
Charles Town junior drummers and dancers take to the stage

Charles Town junior drummers and dancers take to the stage

Charles Town junior drummers and dancers take to the stage

Charles Town junior drummers and dancers take to the stage

Jamaican Maroons celebrate, question land rights

Yesterday