Is the Road Town Market Square a ‘white elephant’?
Territorial At-Large Representative and Deputy Speaker Stacey Mather has raised concerns about the government’s investment in Road Town Market Square, questioning whether the $1.5 million project, intended to revitalise the area and provide opportunities for vendors, will ever generate returns.
In a recent House of Assembly debate about the government’s $100 million loan resolution, Mather addressed the delays and financial management issues surrounding the project. He noted that the project was initially budgeted at $1,432,500 and was supposed to be completed in May 2021.
However, the market was not officially opened until February 2023, with some work still pending. “The Road Town Market looks pretty, but what’s the rate of return on that?” Mather asked.
During last year’s dedication ceremony, Communications and Works Minister Kye Rymer expressed hope that the Market Square would encourage economic enrichment and recreational enjoyment.
“As tourism is everyone’s business, in these beautiful Virgin Islands, we felt that it was important to present festive kiosks that will attract both tourists and residents alike,” Rymer said. “From today, this market will be bustling with vendors selling local and imported produce and goods, the sound of music, and people shopping.”
But more than a year later, only six of the 16 kiosks have been rented out on long-term leases. The monthly rental fees have been temporarily reduced from $300 and $450 to $200 and $350, respectively, due to the absence of shutters on the kiosks. Day rentals are also available for $25, but vendors have raised concerns that the unfinished design discourages business.
A recent Auditor General’s report showed that the market remains underutilised. The report concluded that this was partly due to the unfinished kiosk design, which offers little protection from the elements, and also to the cost, which some vendors find prohibitive.
Along with the Market Square, a bandstand and a bus shed were developed to replace the market structure destroyed by the hurricanes in 2017.
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It’s just another one of Kye’s wastage to the tune of over a million dollars
Cover the Ghut for more parking and a bypass road to go east…..Move the bus stop and build it on top the Ghut by Supa Valu
In the past, markets had a way of happening of their own accord. They adapted surroundings. They were not designed on a drawing board to X ft and Y ins. As such they were attractive to the eye and fitting for their purpose.
The Road Town Market Square is neither attractive or functional.
We all know the market square was another project to get money from the government into the pockets of cronies:
Just like projects such as:
– Pier Park
– BVI airlines
– Barges
– security contracts during lockdown
– school wall
– the parties
(Each and all governments we had for as long as we can remember have done this)
It’s just a poorly designed project.
The old Market Square was repulsive to tourists due to its dilapidated condition. The current ‘new’ Market Square could be attractive to tourists IF there were lots more shade and rain protection. Until those improvements become reality it will remain a hot and wet white elephant.
Too much pollution around there. Heat like the bottom of a wok. Yall picked the best spot.
It was pork barrel for someone….$ 1.4 million for 16 kiosks. That’s almost $90,000 each….for four 6x6a, a gable roof with drain, and three foot high walls with a counter, sink and electricity. A crew of four competent carpenters should be able to knock one out in a week if they took their time. So, if you go with materials for each at $ 10K, that means you were paying each carpenter $ 500 an hour. Good work if you can get it….
Styles said it right. This is how things roll around here.
In this time and age VIP is mediocre, can you imagine that be a public market, the BVI should have a large 3 floor building with office and store space for rent with the market incorporated, with rest rooms etc. so doctors could have office space, each diverse business will compliment each other causing sales to increase due to the wide range of traffic to the public market. Fact is the overseas meetings the premiere attends, has harvest his brains to be lest independent and sovereign, so to push the farmers market is a no! No! There education is to be a responsible handler of power, allow neocolonialism to thrive, the politicians really don’t want to fix anything because they benefit from creating crisis and then sell us the solutions, the market shall continue to be spent on as we complain instead of doing something that will last generations to come, have they forgotten that our old people was given a chance by the slave master to occupy that area with better infrastructure than what our black politicians now provide to us, these politicians worst than the slave master.
Do you know that tourists are not permitted to carry any local produce onto the ships. No fruits vegetables nothing except water. Local agriculture has no market with tourists its only about sightseeing and that attracts a bare minimum. Why must every aspect of our lives be about attracting and pleasing tourists.
Another complete failure except for the friends or relatives who pocketed a lot of money from it.
The project has served it’s purpose. $1.5 Million Dollars passed from us to Government to favoured people who pocket the money and we get a fe $5000 sheds that are not used.
Get a new Advisor (Maybe Willock needs money), rinse and repeat until money is tranferred from the people the cheats, the politicians and the elites.
UK was our only answer. Things are not about to change here, ever.
It’s more like a White Boar Hog, completely SHAMEFUL! Look at the bus shed, they blocked off 4 parking spots in the busiest part of Road Town and you would NEVER see a bus there. How does that make sense? Who moves the signs and put them back? Where would they put the signs when they move them to park there? Logistically the entire thing was just PURE F**KRY!
What hurts the most is that despite this stupid construction, the only place that functions as a market is the one where the chicken buses are near the Fire Station. Isn’t that Government Land? Why not clear it off a bit more and let the people operate there. It’s clean and it’s always stocked with produce etc., you know, LIKE A REAL F**KING MARKET! This new Market Square selling more Panty and Bra than Potato and Tania. Is it the Market Square or Victoria Secrets?
Good intentions never go unpunished…
Do you have to sell drugs from those kiosks to make any profits?
Markets are a common site up and down Anglophone countries in the West Indies/Caribbean from Guyana in the South to The Bahamas to Barbados to Jamaica to Belize . They are cultural shopping venues, which preceded supermarkets. They are places to procure local fresh, organic, ground provisions, fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry, fish, etc.. Nonetheless, their purpose, utility extended beyond the foregoing; they are/were social meeting places , bringing family, friends, etc together.
Moreover, the designers missed the mark by a country mile on this project. Were they blind and could not see that protection from the elements were needed and crucial. Grade of C- on the design. It is nothing to celebrate and write home about. Doubt anyone would be copying this design. This design seemed to be done by a desk jockey. There are design in the region that could have been looked at, eg, Antigua, etc.
@ Edread – in a blogg – about the 3 story building at the market instead too / and
I like your last
part of your blogg
, which has a
funny side to it ,
( POLITICIANS & SLAVE MASTERS )
these sets of wannabes
aristocracts who
call themselves POLITICIANS , WHEN THEY DO THEIR
THING AND IT – GETS
EXPOSED , THEY
ALREADY GOT SCAPEGOATS TO TAKE
BLAME AND
THATS WHERE THE
SLAVE MASTERS
COMES IN . AND
THESE politicians are using the RACISM CARD TO TRY AND MAKE THE PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT THE SLAVE MASTERS ARE TRYING TO MAKE THEM LOOK BAD / BUT NOBODY AIN’T THAT STUPID TO BELIEVE THAT SH*T / IF YOU LIVING HERE YOU GOT TO KNOW
WHATS REALLY HERE . AND THERE’S AN OLD SAYING ” WHEN WITS MEET ,” SPARKS FLY ” OR ” WHO IS WHO “