A Craft and Food Festival next month and a Carnival in June are just some of the fundraising activities planned for St. Lawrence Gap as the Dreammakers Millennium Foundation seeks to return this street to its former glory days.
Along with several owners of businesses within this area, the group is working towards raising a quarter of a million dollars to start the revitalization of the South Coast’s well-known entertainment hub.
Disclosing that addressing all of the issues being experienced would require some million, Coordinator Hal Austin stated that the 0 000 emergency fund would go towards the first phase of the project to address five critical areas.
“The lighting is atrocious in the Gap, the boardwalk is a catastrophe and we need to do some landscaping, some painting and some tiling,” he told the media gathered at the Reggae Lounge yesterday.
Furthermore, he said that the vagrancy and illegal drug trade situation in the area also needed to be addressed.
“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars alone cannot do it but at least it would stop the rot and bring back some revival to the Gap because when Barbados is marketed, it is always said that the Gap is the place to be,” he stressed.
Austin revealed that the foundation was actively pursuing the creation of a partnership with government departments to achieve the Gap’s resuscitation, pointing out that there were almost 100 businesses in the area, bringing in 0 million to the economy and contributing million in taxes to government coffers on an annual basis.
“Our main aim and agenda is to double the revenue of the gap, maintain jobs and we want to knock out this thing we call an ‘off season’ because we believe that there are two types of clientele, those who come in the winter season and those who come in the summer season. So we will be playing our part and we hope that the government and other institutions also play their part in assisting us,” he stated.
Later in the conference, Austin revealed that two new clubs; ‘De Old Jammin’ and ‘Mcbrides’ and two new restaurants ‘Chez Max’ and ‘Apsara’ had been added to the list of businesses in the Gap.
By Jenique Belgrave. Barbados Advocate
