MAY PEN, Clarendon — The fate of the long-awaited Herb McKenley Stadium in Central Clarendon appears to be hanging in the balance with the targeted 2012 completion date being pushed back indefinitely.

Launched almost a decade ago, the project was initially scheduled to be finished this year, but it has hit a snag, with the estimated $200m needed to finish the facility proving hard to come by.

“I wish I could find all the help and make everyone recognise how important it is,” said Central Clarendon Member of Parliament Mike Henry, who is spearheading the project.

“I am behind time now,” he added, “but I am kind of just waiting for things to overcome. I am not going to give a timeline, but as soon as the budget is finished I am going to pursue it all.

“I am now meeting with Mr William Shagoury (Custos of Clarendon) and I have written a letter to the Prime Minister (Portia Simpson Miller) because I was advised by my own government that it would have been a part of a heritage site,” added Henry, who is also the chairman of Red Stripe Premier League team Humble Lion FC.

The facility, located on Sharp Avenue in May Pen and named in honour of the late Jamaican Olympian Herb McKenley, was launched with the idea of giving athletes in and around central Jamaica the benefit of a first-class sporting arena.

As initially visualised, the 16,000-capacity stadium would have included “a nine-lane running track, a football field with a specified high-end turf, basketball and netball courts, a boxing ring and a multipurpose area”.

No cricket pitch was included in the plan.

In 2009, communications consultant to the Ministry of Transport and Works Reginald Allen reportedly told JIS News that work had commenced on the facility and it was expected to be finished within two to three years.

“All (of) the technical plans for landscaping (and) drainage have been established,” the article quoted Allen as saying. “It is really the funding that determines the pace of the development, so the timing for roll-out and completion may, naturally, (be) longer than desired, but we are working assiduously in terms of the process of development…”

Allen said at the time that work on the facility, up to that point, had seen the entire perimeter wall and five entry points being built.

But with very little or no work being done on the facility since then, Henry is now harbouring thoughts of going private with the project.

“Everybody has been preaching about the need for a stadium here in May Pen and I have been trying to encourage business people to come on board, so I might just have to think about going private with it and see if the Government will transfer the land to me,” he said.

“I will raise the money privately,” he added, “I have to exercise all of these avenues now because I think the time has come, and I am again appealing for continued help.”