26 April 2015 - Business View Caribbean
TOURISM
Upon completion, the $55 million redevelopment will
include expansion of the arrival and departure areas
and will increase the facility’s overall footprint from
77,000 square feet to 207,000 square feet.
“The board fully supported the deputy premier from
the outset in addressing the development of the three
airports,” said Kirkland Nixon, chairman of the airport
authority board, “and this is a major step to fulfilling
that objective.”
Construction should begin by the summertime and
end in roughly three years, Anderson said.
“We are definitely on track with the expansion project,”
he said. “Next will be the design development and then
we will issue tender documents.”
Based on current numbers and forward growth projec-
tions, the expectation is that the expansion project will
cover the airport’s needs for 20 years before an en-
tirely new terminal would be needed.
Anderson said travel traffic has typically been growing
at 2 percent per year for the last decade, but there was
a spike in the 2014 figures, and if that spike becomes
the norm then the timetable for future needs would be
impacted. Continued monitoring of the tourism market
will provide an early indication, and the construction
of major hotels, for example, would be a signal of a
sped-up process.
Also, a new hospital – Health City Cayman Islands –
opened on the east end of Grand Cayman in 2014,
with designs on becoming a regional and international
destination for specialized medical treatment.
“We’ve created a master plan for the entire facility, so,
today, in doing our expansion, we already know where
