Photo: Giff Johnson.
GIFF JOHNSON
Majuro is soon to see a development in the construction industry that has never happened before.
Pacific International Inc. is facing both shipping delays for key components of the under-construction new Nitijela building and a daunting deadline of August to complete the building for the next parliament session.
It has already been operating two shifts daily, so that construction workers are on site at least 16 hours a day — and the results are evident as the building construction has moved quickly with the double shift.
But the deadline is less than four months away.
A significant hurdle is shipping delays to getting the custom-built roof, which was prefabricated in the US, to Majuro. “The roof is on the water now,” said PII CEO Jerry Kramer Friday. “It will arrive by the end of May.”
Once the roof arrives and is installed, PII will move to three shifts of workers, said Kramer.
This means the Nitijela construction will be the focus of non-stop 24-hour construction operations once the roof is up. “We’ll go round the clock once the roof is up,” he said.
PII is recruiting more workers to sustain this level of work, including fixing the old Majuro Motors building on the lagoon side across from FlameTree and Bing’s store complex to house additional workers who are being brought in to work on the Nitijela and other PII construction sites.
The Nitijela roof is custom made and like a puzzle, comes in interlocking pieces. It was built in sections, assembled by the manufacturer to ensure it worked, then disassembled, and dispatched to Majuro for installation at the new facility, according to Kramer.
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