Groundbreaking Ceremony for BOOT 2 Commercial Complex in Drax Hall, St Ann
Keynote Address
By
Dr the Most Honourable Andrew Holness ON, PC, MP
Prime Minister of Jamaica
At the
Groundbreaking Ceremony for BOOT 2 Commercial Complex
Drax Hall, St Ann
On
October 10, 2025
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It gives me great pleasure to join you this afternoon to break ground for the construction of Boot 2, a modern service complex which will become the hub of this area and will redefine the experience that residents and visitors have along the North coast. Today, is about the continuation of a Jamaican vision for growth, for innovation, and self-reliance.
I met Mr Boothe somewhere around 2019, or maybe before that, maybe about 2017, but in 2020, I visited. At that time, you were just doing the development for Ibex, if I recall, but it was right during the period of COVID and I was questioning the wisdom of his intense investment at the time and I recall in the tour, he said to me that he was serious about Jamaica. He is going to invest in his country. I was taken by his very high level of patriotism and optimism about his country and here we are today making another major investment.
I accepted the invitation to participate in the groundbreaking because it is important to signal to the country that the investments that are taking place are not only or always led by our established investors. There are many, I would like to term them, new investors emerging, a new class of entrepreneurs emerging in the country who are driving the growth of the country, who see themselves as part of the vanguard of development. And I see Mr Boothe as a leader in that new class of investors in Jamaica, and I want to identify, associate and encourage these new investors who understand that the environment in which the government has created economic certainty, a proper regulatory environment, an environment where they can get access to credit, that they must take advantage of this environment and not necessarily sit by and wait for development to happen to them; that they must take their capital, they must take risks, they must be entrepreneurial, they must be prospecting, they must find the opportunity and they must create wealth. And I therefore took the opportunity to participate in this groundbreaking because I wanted to highlight Mr Booth as one such Jamaican, part of this new vanguard of investors in our country who are locally based, locally grown, people who have made themselves and are making and creating wealth, not just for themselves and their family, but for the hundreds of people they employ and the thousands of people who will benefit from using the service that they provide.
The second reason for accepting the invitation to speak here today is that so often we get complaints about this corridor. This corridor was improved maybe 20 years ago to carry a certain volume of traffic. The last time I received a report from NROCC, I am told that the improvement that happened 30 years ago to take a certain volume of traffic, that today the volume of traffic is at least twice what the improvement could carry. Meaning that the current roadway does not have the capacity to carry the volume of traffic today and in fact, the volume of traffic that is projected so it means that there has to be significant investment in improving this road corridor.
Now, when the investment was done to improve this road corridor more than 20 years ago, the idea was to create a highway. Indeed, that’s what it was, a highway but what has happened since? Drax Hall and communities along the corridor would’ve started to develop a particular energy, that’s the term I like to use, for urbanization and that has come because of a confluence of several developments which though planned, they were not coordinated.
For example, along this corridor, there are several major housing developments. They’re all planned, they meet the development orders, the parish councils would’ve approved them, but they bring a certain level of traffic and the residents that are created would require a certain level of service. We’ve developed the North South Highway that brings Kingston closer to Ocho Rios so persons decisions about where they should accept employment and how often they come and visit Ocho Rios or transact business between Montego Bay and Kingston would have increased the flow of traffic. And then there are several hotels that have been developed along the corridor.
And then we notice as well that there are several commercial developments taking place along the corridor so technically what is happening on both sides of the corridor is the emergence of almost what I would call a new urban space that could very well emerge into a new town, a new urban centre maybe, a new commercial zone, but clearly the roadway in its present form cannot serve the new and emerging needs of this urbanized and commercial district that is emerging.
What we have to do is to acknowledge and incorporate the developments that already exist and plan for the developments to come, but to do it in a way that is future proof. Meaning that the decisions that we take today will accommodate the developments of the future without need for reworking or without limiting the potential of the future because of what we have built today.
What we have decided to do, we can’t have a road that is playing two roles because a highway dissecting an urbanized commercial area is going to eventually function more as a local road than as a highway. I think they have a name for it. They call it a strode, a combination of a street within a town and a roadway almost like a highway. It just doesn’t function because of the number of ingress and egress activity onto the road so every time someone drives in off the roadway, traffic slows. And every time someone drives out of a development onto the road, traffic slows and every time pedestrians have to cross traffic slows so the highway that we have just can’t be a highway anymore because of the level of commercial and other activities that is running along the corridor.
We have taken on some of the best development advice that we can get that is being led by the IFC and we’re now doing a design for this road, taking into account that there is this organic energy for an urban space, and we want to promote that. Urban spaces are very important to quality of life, very important to the efficiency and ease of doing business, very important to our health and the protection of the environment, and very important to the productivity of the country so we want to promote the development of urban spaces.
What we’re going to be doing is building more of what could be termed as a boulevard. This roadway, this corridor, particularly this section that is passing through Drax Hall and other areas where we’re seeing this intense urbanization will be more of a boulevard. We note that this development will have a sky bridge connecting the two properties. I made sure to ask Mr Boothe.
I should have asked the architect as to whether or not the designs have had the benefit of the future plans and I have been told yes, but for certainty when I go back to my office, I will call the entities just to ensure that what we are doing is future proof, because I wouldn’t want the development to be happening in the future and then there are some design issues. So, seeing that I am speaking at the groundbreaking and having knowledge of it, I will call in the entities to be certain and indeed it may very well be because of how the development has evolved, that we may have to have several of these sky bridges to connect the urban space.
Usually, where we have to do these kinds of development and boulevards, we would put in place the proper signals. We might have great separations and so forth to accommodate the cross movement of vehicular and pedestrian traffic but all of that will be considered.
Another thing which we have to consider when we are doing these kinds of urban development is noise pollution. And I’m saying this not because I’m being interrupted by several heavy vehicles passing, and indeed I noticed that the architect lost his train of thought when one of those noisy vehicles passed, but I’m saying this because when we are doing our urban planning, we don’t always take into consideration some of these issues which ultimately reduce the benefit and welfare of the people who will occupy these spaces.
We are seeing this challenge with, for example, hotels that were built many years before the highways were created that run before them and there is noise pollution. Hospitality and noise pollution can’t work. You’re having this lovely facility; you’re going to be having fine dining and BPO operations; a noisy environment and these kinds of activities don’t go together. There has to be a kind of design consideration when we are making these developments, and I’m certain that the architects can put in place certain measures to dampen the noise and we at the NWA and NROCC, we certainly will have to consider the kinds of materials and whatever technologies that are available to dampen the sound of the tire and the asphalt.
We are going to be looking into all of that, and I encourage the developers here to build in the necessary buffers to dampen and reduce the noise pollution but having said that, there has to be better traffic management because certain vehicles that are emitting certain decibels of noise should not be allowed in certain zones, and so there has to be stronger enforcement of noise control zones. But apart from that, apart from the development of this corridor, we will be extending the North South Highway so the people of this area and those who traverse from Kingston to Montego Bay will have another option of an extended toll road, which will extend the existing North South Highway, which will go, I believe, very close to the parish border to Trelawny.
There will be two corridors that the commuting public will have, and that in itself will open up new lands for development, support the natural energy here so effectively what may very well happen in the next 10 years is this area will become the magnet for business and other urban development, and then we will have to be thinking very carefully how do we then rationalize between St Ann’s Bay here and Ocho Rios. So, effectively the new centre of economic activity, which will be better planned, more efficient, more conscious of the environment, delivering a better quality and standard of living, this era will become the commercial magnet, and we hope that that will then give an opportunity for the redevelopment and rebirth of Ocho Rios and St Ann’s Bay where we could take advantage of the old charm of the smaller street of the more intimate setting to utilize them for greater tourism and lifestyle products.
We are thinking in a very comprehensive and strategic way about the spatial and social development of the area taking into consideration urban development. So, I’m here, Mr Boothe, to also bring to the attention of the people in St Ann that your government is working in very strategic ways. You may not always see it because every time there is a blockage on the road, there is a call that we must do something about the road but no matter what I say that yes, something is being done about the road, the only time that people believe it is when they see the backhoe or the excavator on the road.
I want to just assure the public that how we do things now, is that we don’t put the backhoe and the excavator on the road and then we develop the plan or decide where the alignment is to go or do the consultations with the public. No, we take at least two years of development work before we turn any soil, and we are now in that phase of doing the development work. The IFC is our partner in the development on this corridor, and China Harbor is a development partner for the extension of the North South Highway, and they are now currently doing their plans.
The extension of the North South Highway will be done in phases. It will have two legs. The first phase and the first leg is to extend from where the current North South Highway ends to bypass this area via toll road and then the second leg is to connect from where the road currently ends to bypass Ocho Rio so we’re going to ensure that there is efficient traffic flow and connectivity for this area. This area will definitely become the new centre of urban development for the parish of St Ann.
Mr Boothe, you are ahead of the game by putting your stake in early, but I close my presentation to you by noting that this development, in my estimate, Mr Boothe, is that you would be probably spending about $1.5 billion to do this development. When I speak with contractors and developers, they are not so much complaining about financing these days. There are some that have financing challenges, but you know financing is available. What they do complain about is the availability of skilled labour. It is a real challenge, a real problem. I noticed that you have taken on a well experienced developer and I’m of the view that you should not have any significant challenges and delays, but I would suggest as well that when you’re doing your project, that you get in touch with the HEART Trust/ NSTA and in parallel work with them to train some of the labour that you will take on, not just in skills, but in attitude as well because that would be of supreme benefit to the society generally, to have persons trained, but it will be of benefit to you in the future because I’m certain that this is not going to be your last project, and the investment that you make in the labour force is likely to yield great results as you continue in business.
So, I want to recommend this to you and indeed to the contractor, Henan Fifth, that you should work in parallel with the HEART Trust/ NSTA to train the unskilled labour that you may take on so that they are available to you in the long term, but it is also of supreme benefit to the society to have them trained.
So, with these brief remarks and a reiteration of my commendation to Mr Boothe for being part of this new vanguard of investors who are exhibiting real confidence in the Jamaican economy, who are taking risks not just to create wealth for themselves, but for their employers and all who benefit from the service they provide, I wish to commend you and your family and I wish for you a successful project, a completion on time and in budget.
God bless you and thank you.