Speightstown, St Peter is coming alive again.
The northern town will get a multi-million dollar fillip in the new year with a self-contained shopping mall.
It will span a 60 000 sq. ft. area between Queen Street and Godding’s Road in the 18th and 19th century shipping port town once nicknamed “Little Bristol”.
Plans for the private development project have already been prepared and submitted to the Town and Country Planning department, and a spokesman for the project disclosed that costing is now being worked on.
A date is not yet fixed for the start of construction, but it is understood the development is scheduled for completion in time for next year’s winter tourist season.
Provisions are being made for a variety of commercial shops and offices and pedestrian traffic, and the whole project is being developed to put a new spark in the St Peter town, where a new commercial revolution has already started.
The town recently assumed a new face-lift when Manning, Wilkinson and Challenor replaced its old structure with a renovated and modern shopping centre on Queen Street.
A number of other business enterprises are also modernising their offices and shops, and the whole town seems to be getting ready for the development of the Heywood’s Holiday Resort Village on the outskirts of Speightstown.
A number of commercial banks’ branches in the town have increased in recent years and the Speightstown-Bathsheba bus service has brought additional activity to the area.
Speightstown was once one of the busiest Caribbean towns until about three-and-a-half decades ago when early merchants either sold out their businesses, moved to Bridgetown or died without anyone to carry on the trade they started.
In more recent years it had become a shade better off than a ghost town, except for weekends when northern parishioners moved down to sell or purchase agricultural produce.
The town’s decline is now being halted, and the proposed shopping mall, the Heywood’s development project and a planned industrial park for the area now combine to increase the importance of the northern parish town.