Susan Gordon, Business Reporter

The Jamintel building, located at the corner of North and Duke streets, Kingston. - File

The National Housing Trust (NHT) has put up for sale the seven-storey Jamintel building in central Kingston that it acquired nearly two years ago as the proposed headquarters for the Jamaican police force.

"There has been a reversal of that decision," the NHT's managing director, Earl Samuels, told Wednesday Business. "We are negotiating its sale."

The Jamintel building, on Duke Street, about three metres north of Gordon House, the island's Parliament, used to be owned by Cable & Wireless as one of the assets it acquired when it bought, in the early 1990s, the government's stake in what used to be the external telecoms agency.

The NHT bought the building as part of a series of deals under which the trust, the government's primary mortgage and shelter agency, would swop the property for land now controlled by the police.

Housing for young professionals

The idea was that the NHT would turn these properties - including the constabulary's current headquarters in Kingston's choice Golden Triangle region - to housing developments for young professionals.

In fact, in 2005 former Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, with much fanfare, announced the planned move of the police HQ to downtown Kingston, warning criminals who pervade the old section of the capital that they would have to be on the run.

However, the police have been reluctant to occupy the Jamintel building, ostensibly because of lack of parking, although government sources suggest there were also deep concerns among cops about security.

Plans for new headquarters

Informed sources say that the plan now is for a new headquarters complex to be built at the current site at 101-105 Old Hope Road. But senior constabulary officers were not immediately available for comment, and Samuels could not speak to the issue.

The NHT boss, however, did hope the 3.5 acres of land on Ruthven Road, where the constabulary headquarters has its Protective Services Division, would still be available for development by his agency. The price NHT paid for the 65,000 square-foot Jamintel building was not immediately available, but the property was listed a year ago by Century 21 Heave-Ho Properties for $86.34 million.

Samuels declined to give his current asking price, but said: "We can realise more than we have purchased it for."

There have been significant expressions of interest in the property, he said.

susan.gordon@gleanerjm.com