It's not as glamorous as BTL northside, not as historic as Battlefield and not as sainted as Memorial Park, but sitting at the junction of where southside grit merges into the bustle of the city's commercial center, "Constitution Park" fits somewhere into the city's narrow matrix of public spaces. But now with a thick-pocketed corporate sponsor, Constitution Park is going from low key to high profile. BTL today formally adopted the Constitution Park and has committed to a complete transformation making it easier on the eyes and more important, child- friendly after years of neglect. We were at the park on Cemetery Road this morning for the official ground breaking to the re-constitution of constitution.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
The rundown state of the Constitution Park on Cemetery Road will soon be just a memory. The broken swings, slides and benches will be replaced, and the grounds will be restored. Today in the presence of PUP and UDP mayoral hopefuls as well as other city council aspirants the plan for the park was unveiled and the ground was broken to give way to a revamped park.
Dean Boyce, Chairman of BTL's Executive Committee
"We expect to spend about $70,000 where we will completely redevelop the site and then as with the other sites we will maintain it to a good standard, one that's consistent with what you would expect from BTL and to a level that the local residents will really want to come and sit here and just relax."
Suzette Tillet, BTL's P.R. Manager
"People are going to see in the next couple of weeks we are going to totally excavate everything that's in the park and take out everything, level the ground; all the chairs, all the benches, and everything is going to be removed. What we will keep is one of the monuments that is over there and what we will be doing is installing a walk around the park, an entire cement around the total perimeters of the park. We're going to be installing things like slides, swings, seesaw, things like that which kids can play on and also park benches and picnic tables where families can come and enjoy and have a good time. And we have an area where we are going to leave open where for future people can come to the park, do entertainment-long ago I think this park was famous for that. People used to come and do entertainment and have their little Saturday barbecues and so forth so we want to bring those things back to this neighborhood."
Chairman of the Executive Committee of BTL Dean Boyce says that this kind of community upliftment project is the kind of thing that BTL is known for.
Dean Boyce,
"We've always spent a lot of money and put a lot of effort into supporting sports and education and so on so I think this is really more of the same. All the large companies, whether its BTL or any others, really need to be good corporate citizens and put something back into to community."
But in giving there is always receiving, and Boyce says that like the two other parks that fall under BTL's green blanket, this one too will become a symbol of what the most successful company in Belize stands for.
Dean Boyce,
"You always get something for your money so I think most people here will put up with a couple of BTL signs in exchange for what we're going to put back into the place so I think it's a reasonable compromise."
Compromise that in the coming weeks will see what the trade off ending with the complete transformation of this landmark that sits in a traffic hub that of late is seeing increased activity.
