By: Precious Mills
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts (Thursday 9th October 2025)-After more than two years of restricted access, the sidewalk along the Bay Road by the historic Old Treasury Building at Port Zante (which houses the St. Christopher National Trust and Museum) is expected to reopen for public use in December 2025.
Such an update was shared during a recent special Walk-Through hosted by the St. Christopher National Trust on Friday 26th September 2025.
The event gave members of the public and the media an opportunity to view progress on the extensive restoration project -that officially began in September 2023- as officials were on-site to share updates and answer questions about the ongoing work.
Project Manager Lindbergh Alvaranga informed that the team is working to speed up the timeline for reopening the area to pedestrians.
“We’re adjusting our schedule; our priority to the Bay Road elevation so that we can restore the sidewalk back for public use as quickly as possible so that our priority in terms of next steps going forward so we are in the process right now with Danielle Steele and myself, and we’re meeting with the contractor’s team to adjust the schedule so that we can release that back to the public at least before carnival; that’s what we want to do.”
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Sustainable Development Shez Dore-Tyson, expressed satisfaction with that assurance, noting the Ministry’s concern for public safety and accessibility.
“I’m very happy as the PS of the Ministry of Sustainable Development for what Mr. Alvaranga said [because] the Ministry is concerned not just about the building but the people even more so. I’m very happy that the safety of the people have been considered and that the front of the building that leads right into Fort Street that the front [area] would be given back to the people- hopefully as he said by December- hopefully.”
Managing Director of Parvenir Heritage Restoration and Maintenance Company (of Trinidad and Tobago) Justin Charles explained the team’s focus on balancing both safety and preservation.
“We are restoring the structure for the health of the building as well as to be sturdy enough not to damage any individual. So we just showed you upstairs how the tin ceiling looks on the ends, right? And we wanted to stop at that point and we would like to restore it to a point that is also aesthetically pleasing to the eyes.”
Structural Engineer Danielle Steele elaborated further on the technical aspects involved in the restoration and how one part of the work often affects another, saying:
“…the tin ceiling itself is an aesthetic part of the project, and the main goal was to deal with the structural aspect of the project but you can understand that sometimes there are aspects that sink and kind of overlap each other and this was one of those instances where in us trying to restore the wall and take off the mortar off the wall we realize that we have the tin ceiling which part of it is onto that wall.”
She added: “So it makes no sense going and restoring the wall and we have it all nice and then someone has to come later down 5-10 years and take to restore the tin ceiling and you don’t know what damage is going to be done to the wall…So in that aspect even though we’re not looking at the full esthetical aspect of the building, there are certain items that need to be looked at to ensure that there is no overspend on your part in the future.”