SUCCESS, St James — Plans to develop a Tourism Innovation Township in Barrett Town, St James, have received a US$5-million boost from Palace Foundation, the charitable arm of Moon Palace Resorts. Among other things, the funds will be used to help build a school and establish day-care facilities — and both measures are expected to benefit locals.

The donation is linked to the US$700-million Moon Palace The Grand project — a 33-storey, 1,200-room luxury resort set to be constructed in the Rose Hall area.

“Our main goal is to create local opportunities for the people of Jamaica so that they can find, right here in their home country, a job where they can develop professionally while enjoying a good standard of living, without having to leave the country for better opportunities elsewhere,” Palace Resorts CEO Gibran Chapur said during Monday evening’s ground-breaking for the hotel project which will create about 3,000 jobs.

He said in addition to the US$5 million, Palace Foundation will partner with the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) to develop Success Beach, supporting the Government’s effort to ensure all Jamaicans have access to enhanced public beaches.

According to Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness, that partnership will “ensure that there is a properly developed beach, adequate in size and service, for the public in this area”.

Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett, who is also Member of Parliament for St James East Central where the development is located, was ecstatic. He is convinced Success Beach will be even better than Harmony Park Beach, a popular Urban Development Corporation-operated public facility in the heart of Montego Bay.

“I promise you this Success Beach will be Harmony Park 2.0. The reason it is going to be so much better is because it is a better beach… It is the finest beach property anywhere, arguably, on the north coast. I’m proud of that because, Prime Minister, we are saying to the people of Jamaica, they must get the best — and Success Beach will be the best,” Bartlett said.

Speaking with reporters at the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association’s annual general meeting this June, the tourism minister shared his vision for the Rose Hall section of his constituency, which is already home to a large portion of the local room stock. The plan is for the corridor to offer “the largest compilation of hotel rooms in any single space within the Caribbean, where you have 5,000 rooms just within walking distance of each other”, Bartlett said then.

The larger plan includes building out the commercial services, housing, infrastructure and amenities that tourism workers will need as they work at these hotels. Bartlett envisions a circular economy, with hotels feeding communities with electricity and water while the communities provide hotels with goods and services.

“Backyard farming will be encouraged and small cottage industries will be encouraged, particularly for manufacturing of condiments and so on but also to make sheets and pillowcase and blankets, all those little things that the hotel is going to need,” he said then.

The minister believes this could be the first of its kind anywhere globally.

During Monday’s ground-breaking for what will be the Caribbean’s tallest hotel, Chapur provided insight into Palace Foundation’s decision to be part of the new township Bartlett has long envisioned.

“I think it’s going to be the most important part of our investment. We will be contributing, along with Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett, to the development of what will become the new town of Montego Bay, right next to us, helping us to modernise the school, park, sports area, as well as an important focus on day-care facilities for young ones. As Jamaicans work, all their children are properly cared for,” Chapur said.

“This contribution for this town, for this day care, will be in the range of US$5 million that will be funded from the Palace Foundation and from my family,” he added.

Bartlett hailed the donation as a breakthrough for the planned township, noting it will fund worker housing, expand the local Success Primary and Infant School, and finally realise his long-held dream of establishing another first for St James.

“They said, ‘We will work with you to expand the school, and not only to do primary education, but early childhood education.’ That means something to me, because my dream was to have this Innovation Early Childhood Development Centre, which you couldn’t quite succeed in getting all the arrangements for. But we have a little money that we raised towards it, and together we can work now with the foundation to create the first Tourism Early Childhood Development Incubator in the parish,” the tourism minister said.

Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness speaking Monday during the ground-breaking ceremony for the US$700-million Moon Palace The Grand project in St James. (Photo: Horace Hines)