Refurbished Court House and Treasury Building Commissioned

The newly refurbished court and treasury building in Belize City was officially commissioned this morning. The building received extensive damage in November 2022 when Hurricane Lisa made landfall in the Belize District. The Government of Belize invested just under three million dollars to bring the courthouse back to life, while maintaining sixty percent of the original structure. We spoke with Chief Engineer Evondale Moody about the renovation.

 

Evondale Moody, Chief Engineer, MIDH

“We started with the roof. We had to ensure we reconstructed a new roof because the entire roof was gone. So we have a new steel structure roof in place. We believe it is well suited for the conditions we have in Belize in terms of hurricanes and tropical storms. In terms of the building structure itself we had to do a lot of works in terms of the interior of the building. What we did was gutted out the entire structure and only left the walls standing and we had to go to anew drawing plan in terms of the layout for the building in terms of the lower flat and also the first floor. We did that in conjunction with the Chief Justice to gather from her what exactly she wanted in terms of the court rooms that we have within the entire building. So we went through a discussion process with her and her entire team so that we could present and build exactly what they needed for this building. As you can see from the outside of this building we tried to maintain the aesthetics. We had some issues where the original floor had to be replaced in certain areas. In the courtroom where we had the ceremony today the original wood is still the original wood. We didn’t do anything to do. We sanded it and brought it to its original condition. So what you see in here is what we have brought back. Regarding the other floors for the other court room we had to change most of those because those were built on beams that are over a hundred years old. And some of those beams were infested with wood lice so we had to change out a few of them but we tried to maintain as much as we can in terms of its integrity.”