Airport:--- The plans for a fully enhanced Airport Terminal Building was presented to members of the media on Tuesday by PJIAE Project Director Mirto Breell via a teams’ meeting.
PJIAE communication officer Audrey St Luce Jack organized the stakeholder's meeting as PJIAE is moving a bit closer to starting the project which kicked off some three years ago when the Terminal Building was destroyed by Hurricane Irma in 2017.
Breell said the remediation project that was scheduled to kick off in March 2020 had to be delayed due to fact that PJIAE had to pull back the first bid and now placed another bid on July 27th, 2020 to include local contractors. Breell admitted that the first bid that was published by PJIAE did not include local contractors because the management of PJAIE did not believe local contractors were equipped for the job.
He said last Friday some 21 contractors participated in a virtual tour of the building. He said some 21 local contractors also showed interest in the project. It is expected that some work for the remediation will begin in September 2020 and should be completed in the first quarter of 2021. The reconstruction of the terminal building bid is expected to go out sometime in August or September 2020 and should be finalized by December 2020, while the project may kick off by April 2021. The entire project is tentatively scheduled for completion in 2023. The estimated cost for the project is to the tune of $107M. $50M secured from the World Bank, $50M from the European Investment Bank while PJIAE contributed $7M from its insurance funds.
Three years later, and the reconstruction of the terminal building could not take place due to the lack of funding since the passing of Hurricane Irma in September 2017. Breell said that funding was secured in 2019 when the World Bank got involved in. He explained that the funds are now available while the plans are in place. The funding is monitored by the NRPB locally.
While the designs seem attractive here there is no area secured for US preclearance. Breell explained that PJIAE does not have the money available to fully established the US preclearance but said some plans are in place to begin the first phase of the preclearance. He said after the reconstruction PJIAE will do some extension to its building to house the US Preclearance.
