Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — A new educational tech center, a new hospital, a technology park and an update to the shoreline are the ambitious development projects touted by the Lemanu & Talauega Administration as developments poised to commence for Lions Park in Tafuna.

Commerce director Petti T. Matila presented the government’s development of Lions Park during a June 25th cabinet meeting, saying that the first development is the career technical education center, which will be situated right behind Nu’uuli Vocational Technical High School.

She explained that this section of the park is where “we plan to incorporate, add trade schools, emphasize our priorities, and upgrade some of the educational needs for the Department of Education.”

Next to this section is going to be the Technology and Innovation Park Development, she said, adding that the “focus... is not only for the economy but we need to develop the technological industry in American Samoa.”

“Given our 200 gigabytes of our broadband capacity we need to maximize that asset that we currently have,” she explained. “So what better way to do it then having a tech-park in place, so we can attract more technological businesses or IT related developments for the territory.”

“But the beauty of this is,” she said that  “since education is right around the corner” — referring to the career technical education site — “what we want to do is, we want to push the students, to move over to the tech-park.”

“There’s going to be a space for them so they can do hands on learning for IT related developments in the territory,” she said. “So not only is this going to be assigned with upscaling our workforce, but really pushing for a digital economy because as you know the young generation now, they are a tech-driven generation. So we want to give them space to be a future HR-ready workforce.”

NEW HOSPITAL

Also being planned is a new hospital, to be built at the current site of the Territorial Correctional Facility (TCF). She said the Administration is planning to build a new hospital and “there are plans to relocate TCF to another ideal location.”

As Samoa News previously noted the American Samoa Development Authority’s (ASEDA) 2021 bond series includes a study to relocate TCF and the Youth Correctional Facility to another site.

In her presentation, Matila points out that with COVID-19, it brought a lot of other health care needs for the territory to the fore. “And what better way to be prepared than having another — maybe hopefully — a state of the art health care facility available to our people,” she points out.

“In additional to the new hospital, we’re also planning to build a drive-thru pharmacy facility. Because of COVID, we’ve been blessed with some funding sources to build a drive thru pharmacy in the territory,” she said.

With the technology park and education center, there is also a push to “encourage telehealth, and virtual learning for the students,” she said.

SHORELINE UPGRADE

On the shoreline, “we’re going to upgrade that side of the park also” to include seawalls.

“We like to call it, a recreational therapeutic park. As you all know COVID brought some of the unanticipated challenges to our people’s health, mainly on the behavior health care of our people,” she said. “So if we’re going to have our people utilize the hospital, they could also make use of the shoreline to relax and space to enjoy with their families and members of the community.”

OVERALL DEVELOPMENT

She said the development of this area would make health care, education and the economy top priorities. “This is one of the biggest priorities we’re working on right now,” she said.

She also posed the question as to why all of this development would be build on an area vulnerable to tsunami. “Actually, we’re going to be building up. We’re going to have some multi story level buildings — with ground level for parking, then we’re going to built up and so forth,” she said. “Another thing that we’re trying to incorporate here is an eco-friendly space, making it energy efficient.

She told cabinet directors that the presentation is not the final look, it’s an idea, a concept of how this space is going to look in the near future.

“There’s a lot of planning and coordination going on at the moment so this is a work in progress,” she said and encouraged her fellow cabinet members, “if you have an idea that you know can be used in this park, we welcome the opportunity to incorporate your feed back, because this is a development for all of us to improve our territory.”

She also said that the project calls for some new access roads in the area because of the expected heavy traffic and also more community spaces for our people.

BACKGROUND

Samoa News should point out that the possible effects of these developments on the Pala Lagoon has not been mentioned in press releases or discussions as far as we know. The Pala Lagoon northern shores (side where development is to take place) are where various streams discharge — the largest streams are the Papa and the Vaitele. It is also a very important nursery and spawning ground for many fish, etc. found on the reef. Pala Lagoon also contains the biggest and best preserved mangrove system (red and oriental mangroves) on Tutuila Island. In the sixties, a lot of fishing and crabbing were done in the area.