-By LeN Economic Affairs Correspondent
(Lanka-e-News -10.Nov.2025, 4.45 PM) For years, Colombo’s motorists have endured the city’s slowest stretch of road — the impossible traffic knot that begins at Galle Face and ends at the Lotus Roundabout. Every day, drivers inch forward in a haze of honking, diesel fumes, and frustration, wondering how a capital city that calls itself “the gateway to South Asia” still cannot connect its most scenic boulevard to the nation’s newest express coastal road.
Billions have been poured into the Marine Drive Project — a grand arterial route designed to ease congestion, connect Colombo to Dehiwala, and eventually extend down the southwestern coast. The road now runs almost seamlessly along the Indian Ocean, cutting through Wellawatte, Bambalapitiya, and Kollupitiya — right up to the back of the American Embassy. And then, it stops. Dead.
The missing link lies in a few stubborn acres of land behind the Galle Face Hotel, one of Sri Lanka’s oldest colonial landmarks — and, apparently, its most immovable obstacle to progress.
When the Urban Development Authority (UDA) and the Road Development Authority (RDA) first unveiled plans for the Marine Drive extension, the idea was simple: create a parallel coastal artery that would relieve the suffocating congestion of Galle Road.
The engineering was not the problem. Nor was the budget. In fact, the final phase — connecting Marine Drive to the Lotus Roundabout near the Presidential Secretariat — was already designed, mapped, and budgeted for. The challenge was political and territorial: the Galle Face Hotel.
According to senior engineers at the RDA, the hotel’s property lies directly in the planned path of the connection. “The American Embassy gave us permission to route behind their premises for national development,” one senior project engineer told The Lanka E News. “But when it came to the Galle Face Hotel and the adjoining lands near the Indian High Commission, everything stopped. We were told to ‘reconsider alignment’ — that’s the polite phrase for political interference.”
The irony is painful: the road that would save millions of commuting hours, reduce emissions, and connect Sri Lanka’s busiest commercial belt to its iconic seafront, is blocked by a hotel once marketed as the “Pride of Ceylon.”
The Galle Face Hotel, built in 1864, has long been celebrated as a colonial masterpiece — a sandstone monument to a bygone era of empire and evening tea. It has hosted governors, generals, and royalty. But it now finds itself as the immovable relic of a very different kind of empire — one of inherited privilege and economic inertia.
The property remains under the control of the Gardiner family, who have owned it for decades. Critics allege that this ownership came through undervalued state transactions during the post-independence years, when colonial assets were shuffled through quiet privatizations. If true, that would mean a national landmark sits on land that the Sri Lankan public effectively paid for — and now cannot use for the nation’s development.
“This is not about heritage; it’s about obstruction,” says a senior official from the Ministry of Transport. “Even the American Embassy, with all its security constraints, allowed its land to be used for the road link. What moral right does a private hotel have to block a state infrastructure project?”
The Marine Drive–Galle Face connection is not a matter of urban vanity — it is a matter of national efficiency. According to RDA traffic studies, the absence of this 1800-metre stretch causes daily congestion delays averaging 35 minutes per vehicle during peak hours. That translates to over 10 million lost man-hours annually in the Colombo metropolitan region alone.
The economic cost, when calculated through fuel consumption, lost productivity, and vehicle wear, exceeds Rs. 4 billion per year. Add to that the environmental cost — increased emissions from idling vehicles — and the situation becomes a minor climate crisis disguised as a traffic jam.
Motorists are equally furious. “We built expressways to Kandy and Matara, but in Colombo we can’t even drive from Bambalapitiya to Galle Face without feeling like we’re in a parking lot,” says Pradeep Perera, a taxi driver with 25 years on the road. “The Marine Drive is beautiful — until it ends behind a wall.”
Several former urban planners and insiders allege that the Galle Face Hotel’s continued immunity from the road project is not mere coincidence — it is protection.
During the premiers of Ranil Wickremesinghe, in 2015, plans to extend Marine Drive into the Lotus Roundabout “mysteriously vanished” from the UDA’s project agenda. “It was quietly deprioritized,” a former transport ministry official confirmed. “No one wanted to challenge the hotel’s influence or its historic branding.”
Even ministers who publicly supported the road’s completion — including several from the Yahapalana administration — reportedly faced private resistance from lobbyists tied to the hotel and Colombo’s elite property sector.
“The city’s development shouldn’t be hostage to private nostalgia,” said one urban policy analyst. “No one is asking to demolish the hotel — only to allow the road corridor to pass through a sliver of its underused land. The British built it for comfort; the Sri Lankans are being denied mobility because of it.”
Urban development experts argue that the NPP government now has both the legal authority and moral obligation to act. Under the Land Acquisition Act and Urban Development Authority Act, the state can declare any privately owned land essential for public infrastructure — with fair compensation based on government valuation.
“If the hotel refuses to cooperate, the government must issue a compulsory purchase order,” says Professor Dias, a civil engineering lecturer at the University of Moratuwa. “The law allows it, and public interest demands it. Otherwise, what message are we sending — that luxury heritage takes precedence over people’s right to move freely?”
Compulsory purchase is not radical. It’s routine in every developed country. Britain, Singapore, and Malaysia have all used similar mechanisms to reclaim land for transport connectivity. The only difference is political will — and whether the current administration is willing to confront Colombo’s old-money establishment.
Defenders of the Galle Face Hotel often invoke its “historical and cultural value” as justification for preserving its grounds untouched. But even heritage experts find this argument flimsy.
“The architectural value lies in the main building, not the vacant land behind it,” says a senior member of the Department of Archaeology. “No one is proposing to bulldoze the structure — only to use a small strip of its backyard for a public road. That’s not heritage protection; that’s obstructionism masquerading as patriotism.”
Indeed, several nearby landmarks — including the American Embassy and Galle Face Green itself — have been modernized, landscaped, and integrated with public infrastructure without losing their historic charm.
“Galle Face Hotel cannot live forever in 1950,” remarked one city planner dryly. “If it continues to act like it’s still 1950, then it’s time the government reminded them this is 2025.”
Infrastructure is not a favour to the public — it is a duty of the state. When one property holds an entire city hostage to traffic chaos, the issue ceases to be about ownership and becomes one of national sovereignty.
“This is not just about a hotel; it’s about whether a private interest can dictate public policy,” says Dr. Fernando, an economist at the Institute of Policy Studies. “We cannot claim to be modernizing Sri Lanka while still bowing to the whims of Colombo’s colonial ghosts.”
The NPP government, elected on promises of efficiency, transparency, and equality, faces a defining test here. Either it enforces the public right to mobility or it concedes defeat to one of the oldest symbols of elite privilege in the city.
The Galle Face Hotel may be charming, but its glory has faded. Once a five-star symbol of colonial luxury, it now competes poorly against modern rivals like the Shangri-La, Marino Beach, and Cinnamon Grand — each offering better service, technology, and amenities.
“The hotel looks grand from the outside, but it feels like a 1950s guest house inside,” says a tourism consultant. “It’s nostalgia, not luxury. Its best contribution now would be to the nation’s development — by giving way.”
The Gardiner family, who continue to manage the property, have made little public comment about the controversy. Nor have they clarified the exact extent of the land they own versus the land leased from the state. This ambiguity, too, deserves investigation.
“If the hotel’s ownership traces back to undervalued acquisitions or expired leases, the government can easily reclaim it,” notes a senior lawyer specializing in property law. “Heritage cannot be a shield for illegality.”
Colombo’s cityscape is changing fast. The Port City rises to the west. Lotus Tower gleams to the north. But between them, at the edge of Galle Face, lies a gap — not of infrastructure, but of will.
It is time for the government to decide: will Colombo remain a city trapped by its colonial past, or will it pave the way — quite literally — toward its future?
The Galle Face Hotel has a choice. It can either join the story of Sri Lanka’s modernization — by cooperating with the road project — or become the symbol of its stagnation.
Because when a single wall can hold back a nation’s road to progress, it is not merely concrete that must be broken. It is a mindset.
-By LeN Economic Affairs Correspondent
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by (2025-11-10 11:26:28)
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