In 2016, MLA Mr. McKeeva Bush called for building heights of 20 to 40 storeys, citing Cayman’s finite land mass of around 76 square miles.

More recently, and now Speaker of the House, Bush renewed calls for Cayman to ‘reach for the skies’ with its future development. His vision is of 50 storey skyscrapers.

I was puzzled at this and wondered who had put this vision into his head.

The first person to come to mind was Mr. Dart.

In today’s iNews Cayman we have published a Press Release from DART titled “Cayman Islands premier announces Dart’s proposal for iconic tower at Camana Bay”.

An ‘iconic’ tower.

I have to confess I had to delve into the dictionary to find the meaning of ‘iconic’. I wasn’t satisfied with the first definition so I went to different dictionaries and they all were slightly different including the examples.

The one that struck my mind the hardest was from vocabulary.com. It said, “Something that is iconic is characteristic of an icon — an image, emblem, idol, or hero. Audrey Hepburn was widely admired for her iconic style, her great fashion taste. Iconic often describes something or someone that is considered symbolic of something else, like spirituality, virtue, or evil and corruption.”

I’m not sure our premier would very much like the last sentence, “…something or someone that is considered symbolic of something else, like spirituality, virtue, or evil and corruption.

In the Dart press release it said: “Premier Alden McLaughlin revealed a US $1.5 billion proposal from Dart that calls for the erection of what he called an ‘iconic tower’ in Camana Bay. The Premier stressed no commitment to the project has been made at this stage. And, he said “it’s now time to kick-start a national debate on this towering proposal.”

These remarks from the premier were made at the Royal Fidelity Cayman Economic Outlook conference at the Kimpton Seafire Resort and Spa on Thursday 28^th February.

US$1.5 billion estimate now. By the time, if it got built, $2billion plus?

I can see why McLaughlin is excited and it is very obvious he very much likes the idea.

He knows, too, that social media would decry it but asked the delegates at the meeting to hear him out.

“Do we want to continue with the approach of incremental change, or is now the time for us to think bigger and act more boldly when it comes to our land use and building heights,” he said.

Anticipating a knee-jerk reaction from what he called ‘keyboard cowboys’, he compared their expected reaction to the nay-saying Parisians who long ago petitioned against the Eiffel tower.

“Now, the Eiffel Tower is not just part of the Paris skyline; it is the very symbol of the city itself,” he stated.

Is he saying this iconic, or as McKeeva Bush called a “prosperity” tower, might one day be our Islands symbol instead of the one we have now – the Grand Cayman Parrot?

If it does then now I am assuredly going to be labelled as one of the “keyboard cowboys” as it would definitely, in my opinion, be a symbol of “evil and corruption”. Iconic, indeed.