Renovation of UN headquarters to be completed on schedule in 2012 – official

The ongoing renovation of the United Nations Secretariat building and the conference building at the UN’s New York headquarters will be completed in 2012 as scheduled, the official overseeing the project said today, adding that significant time-saving opportunities in the entire plan had been identified.

“We have identified significant time savings in the Secretariat construction planning that will now bring us back to our original schedule for the Secretariat,” Michael Adlerstein, the Executive Director of the so-called Capital Master Plan (CMP), told reporters in New York.

Some time was lost in the first phase of the plan, which involved the relocation of almost 6,000 UN staff from the Secretariat building, Mr. Adlerstein said.

“At this time we project that the Secretariat building will be completed on schedule and the departments will commence the reoccupation back into the renovated secretariat building more or less in two years from now, within 2012,” he said. “The work on the conference building will also be completed in 2012,” he added.

The completion of the Secretariat building and the conference building will allow the office of the Secretary-General and conference services to move back to their old offices from the temporary North Lawn building, which will then accommodate the General Assembly.

Work on renovating the General Assembly will commence in 2012 and be completed a year later, Mr. Adlerstein said, adding that the entire project was “close to being on budget.”

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pledged two years ago to make the UN complex “a model of environmental stewardship” by reducing electricity and water usage, and by removing harmful materials that were used in the original construction.