around the new $60 million-plus Zurich Centre at the WaterFront on Pitts Bay Road, which she officially opened on Wednesday evening.

The building is the first part of the total redevelopment of the Pearman Watlington property best known until now as the site of Miles Market. Next door to the property is the east wing of the Fairmont Hamilton Princess Hotel, which is to be renovated, starting this winter.

The new Zurich Centre is home to all 160 Bermuda-based employees of the Zurich Financial Services Group, including the Centre companies. Also in its 120,000 usable square feet are Cafe Re -- what would once have been called a "staff canteen'', run by Miles Market -- and an impressive array of art by international and local artists, facilitated by Masterworks. The collection includes A Day At The Game, an oil painting by a very well-known Bermudian artist: Premier Smith.

Also on hand at the official opening was the chairman and chief executive officer of the ZFS group, Rolf Huppi, who is based in Zurich. It was Mr. Huppi who opened the group's first office in Bermuda in 1977, a year after he paid his first visit to the island.

In her opening remarks, the Premier drew parallels between the "non-traditional thinking'' of the ZFS companies and the new Bermuda. "The successful philosophy of the ZFS group -- innovation, a non-traditional approach and uniqueness -- also describes this handsome building,'' said the Premier.

"Here is a building designed to fulfill its function with warmth,'' the Premier said, "a landmark of grandeur and significance.'' Thanking the Premier, the chief executive officer of Centre, Paul Hellmers, told a short story about a visiting hedge fund salesman from Richmond, Virginia.

Premier opens new centre The man had barely stepped off the plane when he demanded to see the Premier's painting, about which he had heard so much, even though the painting had only been on the boardroom wall a few days and the company had not yet had the chance to publicise it.

Mr. Huppi said how pleased the ZFS group was to be in its "new home in this financial service centre of the world''. He recalled the group's first office, "in a corner of the Bermuda Fire & Marine building, where we had one desk ... then two ... then three ... in a very narrow, little office.'' Since that time, Mr. Huppi said, the companies had been in six other locations in Bermuda. He referred to the Island as an "incubator'', very much in line with the insurance industry's own characterisation of Bermuda as an "insurance laboratory''.

Mr. Huppi referred to a time when Centre's walls were covered, not with art, but with charts, the handiwork of Steven Gluckstern, who co-founded Centre with Michael Palm, who died last year. Mr. Gluckstern, who is now a partner in New York-based Capital Z and an Internet entrepreneur, was at the opening, but not visible was David Brown, the former chief executive officer of Centre.

Among an audience representing Bermuda's business, political, civil service and creative interests were just about all the staff of ZFS in Bermuda, Minister of Labour & Home Affairs Paula Cox, Corporation of Hamilton secretary Roger Sherratt and other local artists.

The WaterFront development was the brainchild of the late Bermuda businessman and sailor Harry Cox, whose son Will is now chief executive officer of Pearman Watlington, owners of the property and partners with ZFS and Fairmont in the redevelopment. Mr. Cox told The Royal Gazette that the development at the WaterFront was proceeding according to the original schedule.