The National Academy for the Performing Arts, Port-of-Spain, will be shut down indefinitely and evacuated as health and safety concerns have made it uninhabitable, says Arts and Multiculturalism Minister Lincoln Douglas.
The building, which was constructed by Chinese construction firm Shanghai Construction for $500 million in 2009 had begun to show significant signs of deterioration over the last couple years, with tiles falling off the building, plumbing failures and the foundation began failing, in terms of its design and filtration system. There is a similar facility in San Fernando, the Southern National Academy for the Performing Arts, but there have not been any reports of defects.
Responding to questions during yesterday’s post-Cabinet news conference at the Office of the Prime Minister, St Clair, Douglas said the students at the UTT Campus on the premises would be relocated. He said the ministry had done a full engineering evaluation of the facility and a report was sent to Cabinet and subsequently to the Ministry of Works and Infrastructure for further evaluation and determination.
He said the Works Ministry had advised that “the whole building of Napa be shut down.” Asked when was the recommendation made, he said: “That has been an issue (for) a while now. We are working with various ministers (and others) to provide the process by which that closing strategy should be done.”
Asked if the facility was still being used after the recommendation to shut it down was given, Douglas said: “Well there is a school there (UTT school).
That is the main part of the building that is being used and so we have to exit gradually.”
Questioned on the plan thereafter, Douglas said: “The plan is to go into the fixing of all the infrastructure (at Napa).” He said he would arrange a detailed news conference on the matter, adding that the questions “came out of nowhere and I am not in a position to bamboozle you, anyway. I will make (have) a formal press conference on the state of Napa, based on the results of the report and what is needed in order to rectify that building.”
In response to further questions on the occupancy of the building in the wake of a recommendation to shut it down, Douglas said: “The facility is still open because it is being used. There are students in the school and we are looking and working to find ways to move them out.
“I mean, it is not like immediately urgent but it is as a result of health and safety concerns that (Napa) cannot be occupied over a long period of time.”
Douglas said the decision to shut down Napa was based on problems with the “air quality and the physical structure.”