New Saipan Municipal Council building on track

Saipan & Northern Islands Municipal Council chair Ana Demapan Castro, left, and vice chair Antonia Manibusan Tudela hold up the artist’s rendition of the planned Saipan Municipal Council building at the site where it will be built next to the U.S. Postal Service. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)

The long-awaited Saipan Municipal Council building project is starting to shape up with a planned groundbreaking ceremony at its Chalan Kanoa site next to the U.S. Postal Service just as soon as the project is ready to get off the ground.

Right now, about 98% of the pre-construction work is already done, according to Ana Demapan Castro, chairperson of the Saipan & Northern Islands Municipal Council. That includes doing the required environmental and historical review, securing the entire designation of public domain to the municipal council, collaborating with the CNMI Public Assistance Office and Federal Emergency Management Agency, and working with the Saipan & Northern Islands Legislative Delegation to request for additional local funding as cost-share and match.

The entire project has been on the drawing board since August 2015 when Typhoon Soudelor extensively damaged the building and rendered it unusable based on post-inspection findings by local and FEMA inspectors.

Last March 24, the Office of Insular Affairs awarded the CNMI $9.08 million in Capital Improvement Project grant funding and part of that money will be used to fund the construction of the Municipal Council building.

An artist’s rendition of the planned Saipan Municipal Council building. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)

The project continues to undergo technical changes to date, going back and forth between numerous reviews, permitting clearances, and justifications by countless entities and offices within the CNMI government and U.S. federal entities charged with securing funding and issuing approvals in order to expend monies for a host of disaster-damaged public facilities.

The new building will feature a 2,400 square-foot public facility that will permanently house the SNIMC as it plans to expand municipal programs and services. Among the potential programs being envisioned in villages are Neighborhood Watch, home gardening, beautification, environmental stewardship, home economics, capacity building training and development seminars (healthy living, nutrition, and wellness, budgeting, savings and investing, cooking, virtues and values, self-care and positive living, etc.), and cultural competency and proficiency in the indigenous languages, traditional medicine, heritage, arts and crafts.

Castro dedicates the future building to the people of Saipan and the Northern Islands and the hard work and collaboration shown by many stakeholders and individuals involved in the project since the start. (PR)