World class Centennial Park on the cards to celebrate bauxite history in Linden
By Kurt Campbell
After 100 years of successful bauxite mining in Linden, Region 10, plans are on the cards for the creation of a multi-million-dollar first class Centennial Park on 34 acres of land, promising to be a psycho-social game changer for the town and Guyana as a whole.
First of its kind here, the park will feature a statue, pool with lighted fountains, paved seating area and a wall of fame indicating the various stages in the processing of bauxite.
It will also feature an indoor/outdoor bauxite museum with live train rides, a wraparound solar lit exercise and recreational track, youth innovation and technology center for the arts, botanical gardens with thematic animated features and children play zone.
It will be patterned closely with the existing Parque de Libertad in Costa Rica with the fountains patterned after the Magic Circuit fountains in Lima Peru.
The project was recently presented to the Board of the Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) by the Bauxite Centennial Park Committee.
Committee member Selwyn Sills told the News Room that the park will be a living tribute to the legacy of the mine workers and the contributions of the industry to national development.
“It’s a beautiful and brilliant idea and vision that will offer a cutting edge to the lives of the people of Linden.
“Tourism is taking a major turn for the better, people are moving and things are happening,” he told the News Room during a recent interview.
Sills says the project, formulated over four years ago, is viewed is a stimulus for social innovation, creativity, inward tourism and healthy living.
“It’s one of a kind… it will be a statement that future generations will enjoy,” he explained.
But to see the project realised, which can cost over US$40 million ($800 million GY), Sills says the committee is now looking for public and private partnerships
“The plans and projections are there; we are looking for another ‘P’ – partnership with the government, public and private sector and the people of linden.
“We have a vision, now we need provision,” he noted.
The park is another phase to the recently erected $20 million bauxite centennial arch on Casaurina Drive. The Arch currently stands at the ceremonial entrance to the park which will be located between the Fairs Rust Junction and the Washer Pond Road, and area which historically covered the end of the ore’s journey from the mines.
The project will be developed in several phases but will serve as a central driver to tourism in Linden and the wider Region 10.
Already, Tourism Minister Oneidge Walrond has said that investors from Qatar and Dubai were interested in projects of this magnitude.
“This project is a seller and someone should have been buying. This plan is sold and one that anyone who is thinking generationally should buy into,” Sills said.