Some 200,000 persons per annum are expected to utilise the state-of-the-art new West End Ferry Terminal once it is completed by the November 2023 deadline period.
This projection comes from the Premier and Minister of Finance Honourable Andrew Fahie during a public meeting that was held on Sunday February 6 to discuss the preliminary designs of the new ferry terminal.
He said, “When this project is finished it is projected that it will be able to facilitate about 200,000 passengers per year. And that’s the projection, I’m projecting that it’ll be more but that is the ball park figure that we’re looking at.”
“I want to say in terms of passengers and traffic, that the West End Terminal was basically ranked in the top two in the Virgin Islands for traffic and even with revenue intake. So you can see losing the full use of the West End Ferry Terminal also creates a dent in the revenue making for government so it’s important that we get it back up to speed,” he added.
According to the preliminary designs which were provided by German company INROS Lackner SE, the new facility will consist of solar panel technology and will be built to be resilient against natural disasters.
Contract Supervisor for the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) Sergio Dantas who is also the Project Manager for the Recovery and Development Agency (RDA), said the plans are to commence construction from July 2022 with hopes of completing the project by November 2023.
The contract for the design and management services of the new West End Ferry Terminal was awarded in August 2021, at a total value of $1,048,909.