MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Even as motorists eagerly await Thursday’s planned opening of the May Pen to Williamsfield leg of Highway 2000, one business leader here hopes the infrastructure will attract innovative investors to Mandeville, ultimately changing the town’s reputation of being a place for the “newly-wed and nearly dead”.

Manchester Chamber of Commerce President Simone Spence-Johnson said Mandeville should, instead, be seen as a central hub for commerce and family entertainment.

“Long time that [reputation] needs to be erased. We need to take that out of our vocabulary and understand that Mandeville can be the town and the parish, Manchester, to be a force to be reckoned with,” she said.

The business community, Spence-Johnson said, anticipates that the highway will drive productivity in Mandeville and the south coast.

“We are so centrally located. Our geographic location is so prime for everything. We are at the centre of the island, halfway between Kingston and Montego Bay, so we can be the hub for so many things if we position ourselves right and brand ourselves right,” she told the Jamaica Observer last week.

The National Road, Operating and Constructing Company — which is responsible for overseeing the design, construction and maintenance of Jamaica’s highways — on September 1 issued a media advisory stating that the May Pen to Williamsfield leg will be opened on September 14.

The May Pen to Williamsfield highway project — which will reduce travel time from Kingston to Mandeville and other points west — was originally scheduled for completion in October 2022. This was then changed to January 2023 and later March 2023.

The highway project includes the design and construction of approximately 23 kilometres of a four-lane, arterial divided highway on a new alignment and the upgrading of approximately five kilometres of the existing Melrose Hill Bypass to a four-lane, rural, arterial divided highway.

Peter Campbell, managing director of Golf View Hotel in Mandeville, told the Sunday Observer that he expects economic growth in Mandeville and a boom in real estate development resulting from the highway’s opening.

“I think it will make life in central Jamaica a lot easier to commute and transport commodities a lot quicker; it will also open up the economy and real estate will now find it more convenient or possible to live in Mandeville and work in Kingston or go to school in Kingston and live in Mandeville,” he said.

“I see the highway as an extremely good move, it creates a much easier linkage. I am just looking for other developments of this nature; it can only mean good for Jamaica,” added Campbell.

He hopes proactive measures are being implemented to prevent criminals and illicit activities from taking root in Manchester.

“…Similarly, we find migration. Similarly, it comes with crime as well, so with development comes crime. It is something that walks hand-in-hand and I hope that by now the powers that be also factor that into consideration and let it not be a surprise or something that we are now reactive to instead of being proactive,” he said.

Campbell is also encouraging business owners and citizens to invest in rainwater harvesting in anticipation of more housing units being built in Manchester.

“It is something that I think we should look at more seriously. Mandeville and its environs benefit from a lot of rainfall and oftentimes that water is wasted, so if we were capturing that and harvesting it and using it for our personal need, or otherwise, it would definitely take a lot of strain off the current infrastructure,” he explained.

Within the next two years, the long-awaited Greater Mandeville Water System is expected to be completed to add to the improvement of infrastructure in the town and its environs.

Spence-Johnson shared similar sentiments regarding real estate developments now ongoing in Manchester.

“We have been seeing quite a bit of movement in that regard, more upward movement, and the developments are going up. People are fixing up. People are looking more into Airbnb and people are looking more into purchasing other properties to invest, rent and to sell, so definitely I see a boost with the highway leg opening up in terms of real estate and persons moving in to live and to purchase and to invest in the parish,” she said.

When asked for her view on long-standing calls for Mandeville to be named Jamaica’s third city, Spence-Johnson gave cautious support.

“I think we have work to do leading up to that, but why not. I am not touting that so loudly right now. I know we have internal work to do before we get there,” she said.

She urged business owners and investors to venture into new business ideas for Mandeville.

“We need some innovation here and if we want the parish to be somewhere we stay for a while and people just don’t come to school and migrate, or people don’t just come here to retire. We are trying so hard to change that stigma, then we have to look at the overall plan. We have to look at a long term plan to get this into effect and we all have to work together to do that, and it is going to take a serious mindset shift to understand that we can incorporate all these different corners of the town to do business,” said Spence-Johnson.

When completed, the highway will give motorists travelling along the southern section of the country an option to bypass Porus, the often congested town that serves as a rest stop of sorts for many travellers.

Spence-Johnson said business operators in that town are hopeful despite the expectation of less traffic there.

“They understand that with improvement and with change these things will happen. I remember speaking with a few of my members down there and for them they were optimistic about it. Their outlook on it was that they would get an opportunity to enhance what it is that they are doing down there to pull more customers. That was their view, because you would have a choice now to go into Porus or not. Also, [they will get an opportunity] to focus on Porus, improving it, so that it can be a place where people will actually choose to come in to do business,” she explained.

“A lot of young people are starting businesses and bringing different kinds of ideas down there, so I think once you take away that congestion, it will open up the…landscape,” added Spence-Johnson.

The chamber president said urban planning is also needed to expand Mandeville and ease congestion in the town centre.

“My vision of Mandeville really is to see the town itself expand to the bottom of Spur Tree Hill all the way to the tip of Porus and south towards Cross Keys. I would love to see the town of Mandeville spread that far,” she said.

“There is so much land [near the] Winston Jones Highway, you are talking about Hatfield going out to Spur Tree end. People really need to start looking at developing out there.

“If we open up and we start to do proper urban planning and move a lot of the businesses outside of the city centre itself and spread it out — because we have the space in Mandeville to do that — why can’t we fix our mindset to understand that pass MegaMart is still Mandeville?” Spence-Johnson asked.