Pier Park to fully reopen in May; wins award
The Tortola Pier Park
The Tortola Pier Park, which was named the ‘Port of the Year’, is aiming to reopen fully in the next two months.
Leasing and Marketing Manager at the pier park Meslyn Allan told BVI News yesterday that the multimillion-dollar shopping facility is slated to be fully operational in time for its annual Jazz n’ Style event.
The two-day event is usually held in late May and is geared towards showcasing jazz music and fashion offered at the facility.
Back in September, neither the category-five hurricane nor looters who followed spared the shopping facility.
But, the park still managed to partially reopen nearly a month after the disaster.
“Our focus is definitely to complete the restoration, which we are hoping to complete in the next few weeks and by the end of April or so, major parts of the repairs should be finished,” Allan said.
Port of the Year Award
The park took home the 2017/2018 Port of the Year award at the Seatrade Cruise Global Awards in Europe last August, days before being ravaged by Hurricane Irma.
Allan said the award is a testament to their hard work.
“We were very much surprised and that gave us a sense of accomplishment and we were able to share it with our tenants and our stakeholders as a proud moment for us to receive a well-known and well-respected award,” she said.
“It is definitely a big deal for the Tortola Pier Park in that we are recognized throughout the region in the cruise sector as one of the ports to be rivalled with,” she added.
She said the park’s customer service, unique offerings of locally handmade gifts and souvenirs, and the entire design of the park all contributed towards the achievement.
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Well – for the money spent the facility should have won an award! 😉
Port of the year? really…who decided this Ronald McDonald? it has been an enormous waste of tax payers money and the premises their are often empty….they will be boarded up soon – watch this space! sure something was needed to improve the cruise ship passengers experience rather than arriving to a dirty dusty bare area and then be greeted with greedy taxi drivers touting for business…but this just was another NDP “No Direction Party” grease the palms exercise and siphon off tax payers money…and no surprises why the UK want to bring proper due diligence on the massive loan being given to the Island….
Harsh.. but you do have a point, I think the shops do their best but the rents need to be dramatically reduced I think due to the drastic reduction in footfall…I suspect the tenants have already demanded rent adjustments as there won’t be any cruise ships now for the rest of 2018
This is great news. I enjoy shopping at the Pier Park, and have been missing the full range of stores.
Upward always Tola/BVI!!
WE are a very strong people. History and our ancestry have taught us that.
Strong? No Sah! You are sheep being led to slaughter right now and you happily following each other in single file!
who gives out these awards? ,,,Mickey Mouse? this place will be boarded up before the end of the year as all the cruise lines won’t be visiting anytime soon….Cruise ships were invited to return prematurely by the Premier/BVI tourist board and the bad feedback on the experience has had the expected negative impact – if only they had waited until we cleaned the place up!!!
Cruise ship passengers generally speaking do not like these pier villagesthat are common all over the Caribbean. They believe,mostly rightly, that they are a rip off and that the “real” country beyond the gates are where the best experience is to be found. The money would have been better spent refurbishing and pedestrianising Main Street, restoring our heritage buildings there and giving tourists a glimpse into the history and present day story of the country, rather than building just another same as all the rest shopping street.
It is my cherished dream that one day they will pedestrianise Main Street. Right now it is just an eyesore and a danger to anyone who tries to walk along it. Let us give people a good *reason* to want to explore further into Road Town.
Albion – you make a very good point, the only way main street could be pedestrianised is to make it one way I think, as businesses need deliveries – however I agree with you this would be a great thing to happen if only somebody from the “No Direction Party” actually could wake up and initiate things rather than just play politics and feather their own nests….
Are they collecting rent?
More good news.
Looking forward.
Award for most expensive shopping mall per square foot?
The original designed village included a trolly and pedestrian walks and piers through out the business district and would have improved the entire community. We were building a $45 million dollar pier park with much nicer landscape and with our zigzag parking added by Disney input. I hate to see the park so badly completed with so little of the original design. IDEA also won port of the year for Falmouth Jamaica, and again we have no award in our office, i guess the award was given to BVIPA who owe us the entire design fee of $2 million US Dollars, or maybe to government who over spent by $45 Millions to local contractors which could have redeveloped every and street and sidewalk in downtown RoadTown. Wake up! You are still living a BVIPA nightmare!
Idiotically designed without shade. A pathetic rendition of a 1960’s British shopping square. Dreadful.
Wow. Not sure how it’s pry of the year. Google port zante and tell me the difference.
I checked the cruise ship schedule for Port Zante for March & April 2018. It appears all the large cruise ships from Carnival, Costa, Royal Caribbean, HAL, etc. are visiting this port nearly everyday. So what good is an ‘award’ if no cruise ships visit the TPP?
Based on one of the blogs, I decided to google Port Zante and much to my chagrin, no promps work as to the dining, shopping, etc.and etc.
Much ado about nothing.So many stores were closed there and their merchandise sent to St. Thomas for redistribution a few years ago
What Pier Park should ensure is that on their website
prompts detailing shopping, dining, etc. work so that the companies under these banners websites are up and running as to hours of operation, updated dining menus and so forth are all for full viewership.
Instead of us comparing ourselves to others,lets see how we can best improve our product
Getting our prompts fully operational with all of the retail dining operations,their menus with pricing,and a bird’s eye view of the business is the only way to go.
This is all we need. As for seating,large planters with appropriate foilage placed strategically next to benches can enhance the visitor experience
Pier Park is beautiful. Lets continue to improve on a good thing and make it great!