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Huge pleasure garden, pleasure park in Colombo
The Government will set up a “pleasure garden” alongside a “pleasure park” now under construction in the City of Colombo to enable foreign and local tourists to “spend their day leisurely.” It will have a parking complex “for at least 2,000 motor vehicles, ten buses, 500 motorcycles, and three-wheelers,” the Cabinet has decided.
It follows a recommendation made by President Mahinda Rajapaksa. This “pleasure garden” will be located in a 3.5 acre plot of land to be purchased by the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka. It now belongs to the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA). How the new facility should be set up will be formulated by the Project Consultancy Unit of the Architecture Faculty of the University of Moratuwa. It will also supervise the construction and project management.
A Government official said yesterday that the cost of the latest project would be worked out only after plans were finalised.
The new project is to come alongside the 350 metre high multi-purpose “Television and Telecommunication Tower and the Pleasure Park” that is now under construction on a 2.59 acre site along D.R. Wijewardene Mawatha.
The land is located on the western boundary of the Lotus Tower. The TRCSL which owns the tower will make a 50 per cent down payment for the SLPA land and pay the balance in annual instalments. It will also invest funds in this new project.
President Rajapaksa has told his Cabinet ministers that with the commissioning of the new tower, there will be a rapid development in tourist activity in the areas surrounding the Beira Lake. He has said that the TRCSL has proposed in consultation with Project Consultants several amendments to the project plans in line with the new trends of regional development.
“These amendments include the construction of two cafeterias with a seating capacity for 500, conference halls, shopping complexes and sales outlets,” he has added. He has noted that with the implementation of these amended measures, the vehicle parks already planned will be found inadequate.
President Rajapaksa has said it is necessary that tourists are encouraged to use the developed Beira Lake area. “Facilities could thus be provided for about 2,000 tourists in the Main Tower building at one and the same time and they could thus spend four hours in the main tower. The number of tourists who visit the tower on week days and weekends is estimated at approximately 10,000-12,000. This number may increase further on December 31 and festive occasions such as the New Year Festival.”
The creation of another tourism development-related project by reclaiming a part of the sea at Mount Lavinia at a cost of Rs 36.4 billion rupees was exclusively revealed in the Sunday Times last week.
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