Construction of CICC nearing completion

The Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) is now almost complete with the roofing and other major construction works already in place.

To show that the CICC construction will be finished on time, the 12th Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit Cebu Organizing Committee initiated a media tour of the facility yesterday morning.

The tour, led by Governor Gwendolyn Garcia, CICC project architect Manuel Guanzon and contractor Willy Te Go of the WTG Construction, Inc., was aimed to dispel speculations that the construction will not be completed on the target date of November 15.

The concreting of the three-storey building, which has a total floor area of 25,000 square meters or 2.5 hectares, is already complete as well as the roofing of the entire structure except for the portion where the distinguishing "carabao yoke design" is situated since a glass roof will be installed instead of the galvanized iron sheets.

Guanzon said the parabolic steel arc that symbolizes the yoke design would be completed within 15 days. What is left to be done are the partitioning of walls, composite panels for the walls, and other minor interior works as well as the site development, which includes the landscaping.

With over 90 percent of the entire project already accomplished, Guanzon is confident that the building is going to be complete by the end of the month.

He said it is an advantage that the building consists of structural steels instead of the conventional reinforce concrete because the construction work is much faster and easier.

He said if the 2.8 million kilos of structural steels were delivered earlier, they would have been able to complete the facility much earlier than the target date of completion.

He said the structural steels were delivered only in the first week of July that they were able to work full blast only in the middle of August, adding that the work is so fast that they were able to complete the construction in just a matter of two months.

The installation of the four elevators and the escalators of the facility, the venue of the ASEAN Summit in December, will be finished by next week

An elated Garcia told reporters that she would be glad to update President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on the CICC construction.

Garcia flew to Manila shortly after she visited CICC yesterday morning to attend the meeting of local chief executives to map out strategies in the implementation of the supra-regions.

"I will tell her (the President) that everything is all set. And as I always said from the start of our preparations, we are now in the finishing line. We will deliver; we will because we can. We are Cebuanos after all," she said. - Cristina C. Birondo/LPM