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Bidders to visit site of planned West End port today

British Virgin Islands

Thanks to a recent green light from the Caribbean Development Bank, the procurement process for the construction of a new West End ferry terminal is moving ahead following years of delays, officials announced.

After a July 30 approval from the CDB, four shortlisted firms were issued bid documents the same day, according to the Recovery and Development Agency, which is overseeing the project.

The firms are set to take part in a site visit and bidders’ conference today ahead of their deadline to submit bids by 10 a.m. on Oct. 25.

“The RDA is pleased to have arrived at this point in the process and appreciates the CDB’s support,” RDA Director of Procurement John Primo said in an Aug. 23 press release.

“I encourage the shortlisted firms to thoroughly review all documentation to ensure that their bids meet all the required specifications and offer a competitive price.”

The project — which also includes a temporary facility to process passengers during construction of the terminal — is being funded through part of the $65 million Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Loan that the government obtained from the CDB after hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017.

The preliminary stages of the procurement process have faced various hurdles.

In May 2023, the RDA launched an initial prequalification process, and nine firms responded. But the RDA and CDB reviewed the submissions and determined that none of them met the requirements.

As a result, all nine firms were disqualified.

Last August, the RDA relaunched the process under relaxed criteria approved by the CDB. This time, four of nine bidders prequalified.

“I am particularly pleased to highlight that three local firms (one standalone applicant and two firms within a joint-venture application) were successful in the second round of the prequalification process,” Communications and Works Minister Kye Rymer said last October in the House of Assembly.

“This underscores the ability of our local contractors to succeed in the competitive bidding processes.”

Mr. Rymer also said at the time that the full tender process would begin early this year. That didn’t happen as planned, but the CDB’s July 30 approval of the bidding documents will now allow the process to proceed, according to the RDA.

The West End terminal previously cleared about 40 percent of all arrivals into the Virgin Islands before it was destroyed by Hurricane Irma in 2017, officials have said.

But successive governments had been promising a new terminal for more than a decade by that time.

The largest plan to date was proposed in 2010 under a Virgin Islands Party-led government in which Andrew Fahie, who represented West End at the time, served as minister of education and culture. That plan called for a three-storey, 75,000-square-foot facility estimated to cost more than $40 million.

But after the National Democratic Party came to power in 2011, then-Communications and Works Minister Mark Vanterpool said the project would be scaled back dramatically.

In 2013, Mr. Vanterpool proposed a facility costing just under $5 million, but those plans never got off the ground either.

In 2014, the BVI Ports Authority issued a tender notice seeking a $3 million terminal in West End, but no updates followed before Irma.

About four months after Irma destroyed the existing terminal in September 2017, then-Premier Dr. Orlando Smith said the VI branch of international architecture firm OBMI had offered to donate its time towards drawing up architecture and engineering designs for a new facility.

27,000-square-foot plan

But a new VIP administration took office in February 2019 with Mr. Fahie at the helm, and OBMI was not mentioned two months later when RDA officials announced a plan to partner with a private donor who would cover at least half the cost of a 27,000-square-foot building with the capacity to process at least 200 passengers per hour and two ferries at once

That collaboration, however, also fell through without explanation.

Meanwhile, a temporary facility officially opened in August 2019, and in July 2020 government announced new plans to use a portion of the $65 million CDB recovery loan to build the terminal.

After that, scant information was released until August 2021, when Mr. Fahie announced that a $1 million contract was awarded to the German firm INROS for the design and construction management of the project.

At the time, he also promised a new ferry terminal within three years.

12,000-square-foot plan

Community meetings followed, and in February 2022 government revealed a “futuristic and organic” design for a two-storey building spanning 12,000 square feet.