The Loshusan supermarket brothers want to build a sleek shopping centre on the grounds of the former Chasers Nightclub in Kingston but Government beauracracy has delayed the project by years, said chief architect.

The complex at 29 Barbican Road will not include a supermarket but a number of boutique stores.

“It will have small shops and maybe restaurants depending on the interest,” chief architect Clifton Yap told the Business Observer yesterday.

No time-line is set for completion of the project which still awaits final approval by the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation (KSAC).

“We are waiting on the outline planning permit from the KSAC,” he said. “It has taken over two years and it is still not finished. The process is very cumbersome and too slow.”

Based on environmental permit applications submitted to the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA), the submission for “outline planning application for the construction of a shopping complex” was made in February 2008. Only in December 2010 was Vincent Loshusan and Sons Limited — the company under which the application was made — granted an environmental permit “with stipulated conditions”.

Government delays are increasingly worse and this project represented an ideal case study, said Yap, who was on the “Legs and Regs” committee some years ago and who solely addressed this topic of construction delays but left frustrated.

“The approval process is now worse than ever. We are regressing,” he opined.

The Legislation, Regulation and Process Improvement Project (Legs and Regs) is a collaborative venture between the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce, the Jamaican Government and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) aimed at unclogging aspects of the bureaucracy that impacted the business sector.

Up to print, the Business Observer was unable to contact supermarket mogul Gladstone Loshusan, who is leading the project , nor was Ken Loshusan available for comment up tp press time.

The Loshusans operate supermarkets in the general vicinity including Sovereign Supermarket and Loshushan Supermarket. The Loshusans are part of the Progressive Grocers, a consortium of nearly 30 members which operate large supermarkets including Shoppers Fair, Super Value, Sovereign, John R Wong, Loshusan and Brooklyn supermarkets.