After taking the entire weekend to “pack up,” some 400 Ministry of Education employees vacated the archaic Collins House and other MOE locations on Friday, to relocate to its new $19.2 million headquarters on Thompson Boulevard. The headquarters, although completed since the beginning of the year, officially opens today.
For months the three storey building awaited the installation of systems furniture amounting to some $2.6 million, in addition to data/voice network cabling and telephone lines. The building is owned by the National Insurance Board; however, the MOE is the building’s principal tenant.
Permanent Secretary Creswell Sturrup explained on Monday that in addition to the relocation of the MOE Shirley Street employees, others from its Quality Assurance and Tertiary Education Division on Collins Avenue and its Special Services section on Wulff Road will relocate to Thompson Blvd.
Mr. Sturrup said that he was unsure how Collins House will now be used by the government. He said the building that was built in the early 1920s is not designed for the proper flow of communication and work.
“So now that we have relocated, we are going into a purpose designed building that would provide for the easier flow of work and communication. It is a state-of-the art building that would provide the best accommodation and infrastructure for the kind of work that we need to do,” he said
Mr. Sturrup said that although some staff at the old headquarters had occupied the Shirley Street venue for a number of years, they were elated about the move. “They have seen the new building, so they know that it will provide them with better accommodation,” he said.
Nathaniel Edgecombe, president of Amee International, the local company that installed furniture in the new headquarters, said it took some four months to install the systems furniture that was built by Kimball International, a U.S. furniture company based in Jasper, Indiana.
“Our responsibility of the project started as of June 1, 2003 and was to end at Sept. 30, but we as a company completed the project within reasonable time on the second weekend of August,” he said.
Mr. Edgecombe said his company made absolutely sure that the quality of furniture would sustain the Ministry of Education for a minimum of 30 years. The systems furniture, he said, is most advanced and up-to-date, allowing power and voice data to be incorporated into its base.
“This means that every staff member will be able to conveniently plug in their computers and their adding machines right at the base of their desk,” he said.
Mr. Edgecombe also explained that his interest in the MOE project was through a bidding “application” submitted to the MOE, of which the Ministry directed his company to the Ministry of Public Works, then subsequently to The National Insurance Board.
“We were in competition for the project and we were low bid. The extent of our bid varied from approximately $2.6 to $3.15 million, the highest bid being about $550,000 higher than us, so our approach to the project was from a pure company marketing point of view,” he said.
Mr. Edgecombe said Amee International had been in existence for the past 22 years and is a fully owned Bahamian company, of which most of its accounts are international. He said that in addition to the Ministry of Education, his company had carried out several projects for the government, the third floor office of the prime minister in 1989, followed by the office of the prime minister at the Churchill Building. The company also installed furniture at various banks and law firms.
In addition to the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture and the Bank of The Bahamas will also be housed in the education headquarters. The Ministry of Youth and Sports will share the top floor of the building with the Ministry of Education, while the Department of Education and its various sub units are expected to occupy the second floor. The Bank of The Bahamas will be located on the ground floor, occupying a 5,000 square foot space.
The Ministry of Education headquarters were designed by a private consultant architect of Arcorp Limited, with construction beginning in 2000. The project architect, Douglas Smith, was assisted by several private design consultants to carry out electrical, mechanical and systems engineering and quantity surveying duties.
The general contractor of the building was Carl Treco Construction, with sub-contractors comprising Flameless Electric Company, Smith’s Airconditioning Company, Al’s Plumbing Company and Caribbean Landscaping.
By Tamara McKenzie, The Nassau Guardian
