DESPITE Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett’s passion when he announced a restoration programme for Port Royal two weeks ago, residents of the historic Kingston harbour town still look down on the plan with scornful superlatives.

“I’ve been hearing about redevelopment for decades… I thought I’d see something done before I (die), but nothing,” 70-year-old Kavial, born and raised in Port Royal, told our news team when we visited the East Kingston district last week. She quipped that she wasn’t “holding her breath” for the latest initiative to bear fruit.

“Every five year dem come up with a plan,” a middle-aged male resident interjected, igniting laughter from a small audience.

As part of its thrust to develop heritage tourism, the tourism ministry in partnership with the Jamaica National Heritage Trust (JNHT) and the Tourism Product Development Company, has embarked on a programme to restore key monuments in Port Royal, including the refurbishment of Fort Charles, the museum and the landmark St Peter’s Church; the creation of an audio-visual theatre at the historic naval hospital and the reinforcement of the Giddy House.

It coincides with another project announced by Government to develop a cruise ship pier in collaboration with Carnival Cruise Lines in Port Royal. A proclamation by Transport Minister Mike Henry – three months ago — that negotiations with the international cruise company were far advanced didn’t prevent residents from being equally dismissive of this plan however.

“I nah believe it till mi see it…A whole heap a dem come ya and give wi promissory note and not a ting ever done,” said an elderly lady, who was sitting at the intersection of two streets in the community.

The residents’ scepticism should come as no surprise. Port Royal amazingly has forever been starved from profiting off its rich history. The harbour town on the South Coast of Jamaica was the centre of commerce in the British West Indies during colonial times and was infamous for its immorality. Indeed, it was the base for renowned pirates such as Henry Morgan and Calico Jack and was famously tagged as ‘The Sodom of the New World’. It was struck by a massive earthquake in 1692, which sunk two-thirds of the town. A favoured chapter in many history books, it would make sense that Port Royal would be a favoured destination in this tourism-driven country as well. However, this hasn’t been the case. Today, Port Royal is a picture of a depressed city. It’s a virtual ghost town during daytime, attracting only a handful of visitors — mostly local students on field trips. It comes relatively alive at nights when diners, mostly from Kingston, stream in the town to eat fish — the main means of commerce.

“There’s nothing here but fishing… Where do we stand? In the middle of nowhere without an umbrella or a boat to save wi life,” said Kavial hopelessly.

So, why has this historically rich town been allowed to lay dead for so long? Why hasn’t it been revived?

“I do agree that we are yet to take full advantage of the potential of Port Royal,” said Nicola Madden-Greig, vice -president of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), which actively markets Port Royal as a destination both locally and internationally.

“I believe some of the main challenge is around which of the many visions is the most appropriate and acceptable for sustainable development,” she continued. “There has been no real consensus on how the development plan for Port Royal should be handled and by whom, and then how will it sustain itself financially.”

Arguably, among the “many visions” Madden-Greig must have been referring to, none was as enticing as the one architected by a team led by businessman and former director of tourism Robert Stephens in the mid-1990s. Stephens was head of the Port Royal Development Project Company Limited (PRDPCL), which planned to transform the depressed harbour town into a major attraction that would revolutionise tourism in the Caribbean. Under the plan, Port Royal would have been the centre of a historic triangle linking it to Kingston and Spanish Town. The town itself would be a ‘living history’, showcasing monuments, paintings, a pirate area and a whole line of products related to its artifacts — visitors would be able to take home a ‘piece of Port Royal’ by purchasing replicas of artifacts. There would be an entertainment area and visitors would also be offered eco-tours which would allow them to venture outside of Port Royal, linked by a modern ferry service to Kingston. Visitors would have the option of also heading to Spanish Town and even Blue Mountain. The implication would be the creation of some 20,000 jobs, Stephens said.

An ambitious plan indeed, but it has yet to materialise.

“We started putting the pieces of the project in 1993 and it wasn’t until 1998 that we signed an agreement with the government,” Stephens told Sunday Finance last week.

“We had to be very cautious because don’t forget that this is a heritage site…It’s not like a green field site where you building a new development on a piece of land that has never been developed. It’s an important site in terms of its archeaology, its environment and its historical important in terms of its history,” he noted.

By 2001, the project advanced to a stage where PRDPCL was ready to go to the market for funding, but a sequence of unfortunate events, including the Tivoli shootings that year, shelved the plan for almost a decade.

“We had about 27 people killed and many investors pulled back,” said Stephens, adding “right after that we had 9/11 and the project was put on the shelf.”

In 2007, the project was reactivated but a series of back and forth discussions — including whether the previous plan is to be implemented — has stalled any forward movement until now. A joint venture between the Governmet and the private sector, of which Stephens is a member, has been formed to take over the project. The group had its first board meeting last week.

“What needs to be determined now is whether that plan is still relevant. I think it is but there may be others who disagree,” noted Stephens.

The project which Bartlett spoke of two weeks ago actually incorporates a fraction of the plan from Stephens’ development group. But the cost of the overall project extends way beyond the $72-million price tag for the makeover that the tourism minister announced. According to Stephens, the estimated cost of the project is a whopping US$500 million. The obvious question is how does the country finance such a project?

“Alot of people say how do you finance something like this. My argument is what we need to do is begin to have confidence in ourselves and our capability to manage and operate an attraction that is going to tell the world about the history of our country,” argued Stephens.

“We do not need to wait for foreigners to come here and create it for us. What we need to do is invite every Jamaican to become a shareholder and with that we can raise in the range of the US$500 million that it will take to build out the entire project and build out the entire Kingston and Spanish Town to link into it,” he outlined.

According to Madden-Greig, Port Royal has all the potential to be one of Jamaica’s major attractions.

“It has tremendous historic significance and can sustain both the ability to be a destination for stop-over arrivals, cruise visitors and locals alike,” she said.

And indeed, the plan by Stephens and his team has all the ingredients of doing exactly that what the JHTA vice-president speaks of.

“What we are doing now is putting the pieces together and hopefully we will begin to move it towards implementation,” disclosed Stephens.

While they put the pieces together, the question is whether residents can bet on Port Royal’s revival this time around after being burnt so many times before. Like the elderly lady sitting at the intersection, most would rather just wait and see.