Convention Center to Spruce up Rundown Area
The government plans to build a new convention center on fill between the somewhat slummy district of El Chorrillo and the fairly commercially-dead Amador Causeway.
Designed by American firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill at a cost of $300,000, the 538,195 square-foot center requires an investment of $200 million. The Panamanian Tourism Authority has hired the Florida-based Conventional Wisdom Corp., responsible for the design of the San Juan, Puerto Rico convention center, to develop the technical drawings for around $405,000.
The new convention center would then be connected to the rest of the city by extending the coastal highway to the Amador Causeway and then figuring out if the road would circle Casco Antiguo or tunnel under the UNESCO World Heritage Site neighborhood.
Construction on the project at the end of next year and completed in 2013, at which time Panama hopes to be the continent’s convention capital.
La Prensa reports.
[...] or tunneling under it to connect the first phase of the Panama Bay Coastal Highway to a planned $200 million convention center to the Amador [...]