Devon Evans, Gleaner Writer

Ocho Rios, St. Ann:

After many years and promises by successive governments to turn the Seville Heritage Park in St. Ann's Bay into a major cultural tourism attraction, things are now moving closer to being a reality.

Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller has announced that a major redevelopment of the park is to be undertaken soon by the Government at a cost of $60 million.

She said the project, which was recently approved by the Tourism Enhancement Fund, is one of the major cultural tourism development projects the Government intends to undertake across the island.

Prime Minister Simpson Miller said Seville represents an archaeological treasure of an exciting period in Jamaica's history and that, following the completion of improvement work, the park will become one of the major attractions for visitors on the north coast.

The Prime Minister was speaking last Saturday at the official opening of the Gran Bahía Principé hotel in Pear Tree Bottom, Runaway Bay, St. Ann.

New Seville was the third settlement established in the New World by the Spanish in 1509, on orders of Diago Columbus, son of Christopher Columbus.

Rich History

It was at Seville that Columbus spent his longest period in the New World, 1503-1504, after being shipwrecked. It was also at Seville that the three worlds, the Africans, the Europeans and the Amerindians, had their encounter and which provided the ingredients for Jamaica's unique culture.

Exploration work began at Seville in the 1980s under the Edward Seaga Administration and, in 1992 Seville was declared a historical site of the America's by UNESCO during the 500th anniversary of the visit of Christopher Columbus to the New World.