Patrons and other users of the National Stadium may soon be unable to recognise the place as plans are afoot to turn it into an ultra-modern, state-of-the-art facility with all the creature comforts found in any modern sporting facility anywhere in the world.

Speaking with reporters recently, Major Desmond Brown, who is the general manager of Independence Park Limited (IPL), and Mike Fennell, who is the chairman of the board of IPL outlined the plans for the phased development of the facility and the reasons behind why this was being done.

“The plan is that we will do the stadium in three phases. Phase one, we will take out all of what we call Little Grandstand [in the bleachers], from the ground right up and it will be rebuilt with skyboxes, special seats, bathroom facilities, which are grossly inadequate now, concessionaires, all of that will be there,” Brown said.

“We are very short on storage here now, plus the media requirements. As you know, media runs things now and we have to make sure of the requirements. We are not doing it only because we want to, we are doing it because we have to,” he continued.

Brown outlined that the plans to upgrade the facility are more than just a desire, but a necessity at the moment.

“There are certain international requirements that we fall behind on currently. We are being allowed to keep events here on a ‘Grand Father’ clause. [The] IAAF [International Association of Athletics Federations] and Fifa could say to us, no more games you are not ready. A simple thing like having individual seats which we don’t have, things like accessing the field, spectators, officials and players should not enter the field at the same place. Having a proper, dedicated doping control centre, these are now requirements, so that is part of the development plan,” he said.

Phase two of the development plans will see renovation of the areas behind where the goals are in relation to the football field.

“The second phase will be the north and south sides…depending on when we start, we might even do both of them at the same time,” Brown noted.

The final phase of the development will be focused on the grandstand area which is set to become the ‘brain’ of the facility.

“The third phase, we will be upgrading the existing grandstand which will be left intact. All the requirements, medical, security; one of the things that [is] now required is CCTV [closed-circuit television] all over, one room where you have all of the police, fire, all of them in one room.

“We don’t have that facility now [but] all of that will be in place and, of course, the lighting, which is [a] critical part. We may even have to revise when the lighting comes in based on what we have down the road. Currently our lighting levels do not meet the minimum requirements so we have to do something about that quickly,” Brown said.

The long-standing headache of accessing and leaving the facility during major events is also being addressed.

“In our development plans we are working with the police, NWA [National Works Agency], to make sure that movement in and out is better. There is a plan to move the entrance to improve ingress and egress from the stadium,” Brown explained.

Fennell said the upgrades will enhance the experience for spectators, which is something that they especially want to do.

“We are spending a lot of time on spectator services, because we must respect the spectators so that this will be a place that they will want to go to and not avoid it.

“Secondly, security arrangements, we cannot avoid that in modern Jamaica. We tend to think that we have unique problems here; all over the world, for large events, security is a top priority in arranging events.

“Thirdly, we have to make sure that the technology that we use it cutting-edge technology, modern technology, to assist not only in our efficiency, but how we present these events to the wider world,” said the veteran sports administrator.

Fennell insisted thatJamaica must preserve the position it now holds in the international community as an international sporting destination.

“We are an international venue, this is not just for Jamaica, which is the first and most important thing, but we are an international venue. This has contributed to Jamaica’s international position and why we are able to occupy such a favourable position in the international community. We now have to work on ensuring that we can justify that prestige,” he ended.

The next phase of the renovation is expected to get underway sometime later this year.