One hundred new apartments for senior citizens will be completed and ready for residents by the middle of next year after a $2.5 million donation from the Bank of Bermuda Foundation and a favourable $12.5 million loan from the bank to finance the remainder of the project.

Ground work has already started at the three-acre site in Rockaway, Southampton and the construction is expected to commence in June and take one year to reach completion.

Surrounded by artists? impressions of the planned, mostly three-storey apartment buildings, Trevor Fyfe, of the Bermuda Housing Trust, explained that the flat-pack buildings were of a similar type to that used at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research last year to construct a three-storey hurricane-proof staff accommodation block in a matter of months.

David Hamshere, Bank of Bermuda Foundation director said the $2.5 million would be donated over the next five years for the seniors? housing complex at the Rockaway property.

?The Foundation is pleased to join in a partnership that the seniors of Bermuda deserve and it will give them a fine place for them to live in dignity.

?It has been designed for seniors and fits into the masterplan of taking care of people who have served this country so well and I like the idea that the ferries will be bringing those people to Hamilton, they won?t be ?put out? there in Southampton, we will see a lot of them,? said Mr. Hamshere.

?This is the largest single contribution that has been made by the Foundation to date and it could not be for a better group of people who have served us so well.?

Bank of Bermuda chief executive Phil Butterfield said: ?It is a clear indication of the collaboration that can be realised within our community when it comes to bringing solutions to some of the challenges that we face.?

Also present at the announcement in the bank?s Front Street office was Ronald Simmons, chairman of the Bermuda Housing Trust, who said the donation from the Bank of Bermuda Foundation and the assistance of the bank with lower interest rate loans marked a ?critical milestone? in the preservation of the mission of the BHT to provide affordable housing to all seniors.

Housing Minister Sen. David Burch added his thanks to the Foundation and the bank for their donation and added: ?You?ll know that, being responsible for housing, I have been complaining ? mostly in the Ministry ? that I don?t have any construction sites to visit and that?s really what I want to see. I?m delighted we are able to begin this project for seniors.?