The Port Authority is holding a competition to select a design to make the apron on the St. Thomas waterfront more attractive and user-friendly between the Kings Wharf/Coast Guard dock and the Blyden Terminal for ferries serving the British Virgin Islands.
"We are looking to make the waterfront much more interesting," Port Authority planner Darlin Brin said. "The proposals must include two shaded areas, but we made no other specific stipulations; so the designers can really use their imaginations."
He said plans "should be consistent with the historic district specifications and should include recommendations for the safety of pedestrians" to move back and forth across Veterans Drive.
The preliminary proposals and the designers' qualifications must be submitted to the Port Authority by June 16. A week later, Brin expects to turn those designs making the first cut back to their designers for refinement. After reviewing the finalized proposals, Port Authority staff members will select the design to receive the contract. The second- and third-favored proposals will each receive an award of $5,000.
Brin estimates the budget for the project at $1.4 million. He says the financing has not yet been allocated but would be available from the Port Authority budget and from Federal T21 Highway Transportation funds. "There are specific funds available for enhancement and development of this type of project," he said. "Construction could begin very soon but would have to be done in phases because of all the activity in the area."
José Ortega of the St. Thomas firm Paradigm Design is pleased that the Port Authority recognizes the esthetic, social and economic value of the waterfront. "This kind of competition is very progressive here in the Virgin Islands, very positive, in that it gets people together in the planning," he said.
"This is a very complex area with an active transportation port of tenders, the Caneel Bay boat, and down island shipping," Ortega said. "It needs a sense of arrival, a welcoming atmosphere, and a connection between the harbor and the town as it was historically."
Mike De Haas of Brill, De Haas and Associates attended the preliminary bid meeting but has since decided not to enter the competition. He questioned why the Port Authority would want to take on the project. "I don't understand where the project came out of and why the Port Authority is not working with Public Works to develop a more comprehensive project," he said.
"It's a shot in the dark and a lot of work for little money even if you get the contract," De Haas continued. "Other firms have been involved in research for Plan 8 or alternatives, but we are handicapped by not having done that preliminary research." Plan 8 is the long-standing proposal to built a four-lane roadway connecting Veterans Drive to Long Bay that would extend out around the Legislature Building and require extensive landfill.
John Woods of the Jaredian Design Group, an advocate of Plan 8, said he intends to participate in the design competition and thinks it is a good idea to do something about the apron now while debate continues over the highway project. "It is an under-utilized area – everyone indicates that," he said, "and we need to be prepared for more traffic arriving on the apron as a result of the more and larger ships coming to St. Thomas now."
Robert deJongh of deJongh Associates says he will submit a design. "The concept of the competition is good," he said. "It will present the Port Authority with a series of ideas that they may not have arrived at alone."
However, he said it concerns him that "the Port Authority is limited in responsibility to the scope of the apron and has no control over the roadway or the other side of Veterans Drive. It is just one piece of the larger puzzle." He termed the situation "symptomatic of the lack of overall planning in this community."
Also, deJongh said, architects, unlike artists, are not happy to have their designs hung on the wall: "They are frustrated unless the plans develop into something meaningful." He said the community needs an overall planning commission to develop comprehensive plans for the future.
