AFTER experiencing years of delays, Sport Minister Olivia Grange says the upgrade of the National Stadium will begin next year, increasing its capacity to 40,000 from its current 35,000.

Since its opening over 60 years ago the stadium has seen a decline in the condition of its facilities, prompting calls for redevelopment to meet the modern requirements needed to host major global sporting events.

The Government said in 2022 that US$76 million ($11.6 billion) would be spent on the stadium’s renovation.

Speaking with the Jamaica Observer, Grange says the ministry is expected to receive the funds from the Ministry of Finance in the coming weeks and is optimistic that work will commence in 2025 so the stadium will be fully operational in 2028.

“I’m very very confident,” she said. “We’ve gone through the PIMSEC (Public Investment Management Secretariat) process and we are about to get the funds from capital in this year’s budget to do all the preliminar[ies] — the architectural drawings, the marketing plan, all of that. Once we do that we will be ready to break ground,” she said.

“What the Minister of Finance [Dr Nigel Clarke] indicated to me is that the capital budget is now a pool of funds, unlike in the past when a particular project is signed off on and it gets it capital allocation. It’s [now] a pool of funds from which [we] will draw down what we require for the stadium.”

Grange says that the stadium will be open to hosting a wide range of events beyond just sports.

“The National Stadium is going to be quite a modern facility,” she said. “The entire stadium will be semi-covered, there will be a new royal box section, we’ll be doing a new velodrome, we’re taking out all the seats and putting an additional 10,000 seats. We’re going to have boxes that can be rented or leased, we’re going to have a state-of-the-art anti-doping facility, state-of-the-art media facility.

“We’ll have various rooms for banquets and so on, so it won’t just be big events that we’ll host but we can provide for smaller events. Of course, we’ll have the sports museum. We will have very good parking because there is a whole parking plan that is going to be introduced. NWA [National Works Agency] is planning to widen the roads in the area, so that too will assist in the traffic flow.”

Grange says the stadium will still be operational during renovation but is advising event organisers that they won’t be able to achieve the maximum number of patrons.

“We will not shut down the entire stadium because we can’t afford to do that,” she said. “It will be done in three phrases, section by section. It [renovation] will reduce the capacity over the three-year period, since we’ll shut off one section, but we will have additional seats at the project.”

Independence Park General Manager Major Desmon Brown is optimistic he can help with the supervision of the upgrade before his tenure ends.

“I feel good that we will get something going, and it’s something I would like to see before I jump on my horse and leave the job,” he said. “I’ve been there for some time and I have gotten an idea of what it takes, of what is required. If someone new came in right now they wouldn’t know what to do so I’m hoping I will have some oversight into the renovation so that the next person that comes along will have life a little bit easier than I’ve had it.”

The current Government, as well as prior ones, have previously promised a renovation to the venue, on a number of occasions in the past, but those plans never became actuality because of various reasons they cited, including the COVID-19 pandemic.