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Port Authority Funds Airport Projects

Oct. 17, 2007 — The V.I. Port Authority board Wednesday approved funding measures to complete a multi-million dollar federal project focused on rehabilitating runways at the Henry E. Rohlsen Airport on St. Croix.
Also getting a nod were funding for stalled renovations to St. Thomas’s Cyril E. King Airport’s maintenance facility and leases for businesses at Crown Bay Center and Red Hook Ferry Terminal on St. Thomas.
The Rohlsen airport’s engineering consultant, PBS&J Caribe of Puerto Rico, was awarded three contracts as part of a $4.9 million funding plan issued by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in August. The funding plan calls for the feds to cover 95 percent of the costs and VIPA the remaining five percent, which translates into nearly $250,000. The majority of the $4.9 million is dedicated to rehabilitating runways A, E, F, G and H at Rohlsen.
PBS&J received the green light to update the facility’s airport-layout plan (ALP), serve as construction administrator on rehabbing the airport’s runways, and develop the rehab project’s construction-management program (CMP).
The ALP portion of the spending extends beyond the main focus of rehabilitating the runways and asks PBS&J to measure existing airport conditions, provide necessary planning support for ongoing development projects, and obtain FAA approval for the new document once VIPA approves it. The engineering firm will get paid $141,909 for the updated plan.
Board member and V.I. Labor Commissioner Albert Bryan Jr. wanted to know how inclusive the plan would be.
"What other community input is there in terms of development of the airport plan?" he asked. "If it’s only done from the Port Authority’s perspective … other economic interests would be excluded. Are your tenants going to have a chance to have input, and other agencies to have input?"
VIPA's director of engineering, Dale Gregory, assured the board that the ALP would reflect more than just Port Authority’s vision.
"I’m sure we’ll talk with the tenants, other users of the facilities … before the plan is finalized," Gregory said. "We’ll address what we plan to do at the facility for five years, so the FAA will fund the various projects we plan to undertake."
Crucial to approval of the plan are assurances that the Anguilla Landfill be shut down, according to board member Gordon Finch. It is adjacent to the airport property, and concerns arise regularly about smoke from the landfill, its height and the threat to air traffic from the birds that circle the landfill, Gregory said.
"If you show it’s an operation that’s going to be vacated by a certain date, that would satisfy me," Finch said.
In addition to the ALP contract, PBS&J will receive $118,126 to serve as the construction administrator on the runway rehabilitation and $10,840 to develop a CMP detailing how the project complies with terms of the federal grant.
While both these positions were spelled out in the federal funding plan, board member and V.I. Attorney General Vincent Frazer questioned why an independent contractor was needed for the CMP. "Why are we paying someone $10,000 to do this?" he asked.
Finch agreed: "If it’s such a relatively small document, I don’t know why our St. Croix engineer, Jeff Lawlor, isn’t capable of doing something like this. I hope I’m not going to see a lot more of these every time we have construction-management work to be awarded. It’s certainly something we can do."
Five board members approved the CMP contract; Frazer abstained.
Also at Rohlsen, William M. Karr and Associates was the winning bidder out of five architectural firms vying to design the new Transportation Safety Administration facilities at the airport. VIPA said Karr’s design is contingent upon negotiating a satisfactory agreement with the feds relative to VIPA’s financial share of the TSA facility.
Karr was also granted additional funding on a project it began in St. Thomas in February 2001, but which was halted 10 months later. The firm was responsible for a face lift at the King airport’s maintenance facility, but when the Department of Planning and Natural Resources changed building codes, the project stalled. VIPA agreed to add $27,796 to Karr’s original $175,100 contract to resume the upgrades. Prompting the additional expenditure were cost increases since the project was originally improved coupled with change orders from the new building codes, according to Gregory.
Down the road, at the new Crown Bay Marina, three new businesses are poised to set up shop at Crown Bay Center, pending receipt of business licenses. D.C.B. Investments will open a bar and lounge with pools tables, Internet access and food service limited to desserts and finger food. A coffee shop was also approved, operated by Kholoud Suid, a principal in Havensight’s Gourmet Gallery. Suid didn’t name his business, but plans to sell coffee, pastries, sandwiches, newspapers and tobacco products.
Finally, Hanoj Gary Harjani was given the OK to open Canary Collections at Crown Bay, a retail store selling jewelry, designer sunglasses and tobacco. Canary was required to divide its sales between three types of merchandise to avoid a surfeit of jewelry stores occupying the Crown Bay area.
Even further down the road at the island’s East End, two ferry companies were given leases to occupy the new Urman Victor Fredericks Marine Terminal at Red Hook. Three-year leases were granted to Varlack Ventures, which services St. John, and Caribbean Maritime Excursions (known as Road Town Fast Ferry), which services Tortola. Varlack has operated out of Red Hook for years. Road Town Fast Ferry has a concession downtown terminal at the E.W. Blyden Marine Terminal.
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