What some people might call St. John’s white elephant, also known as the Enighed Pond Port, just sits there, down the hill from the Marketplace, serving it seems solely as a waiting lot for the use of the car barges. Acres of land, and what also seems like an acre of concrete, are little used after 20 years of effort to get the project completed.
Steve Black, an island resident who’s been active in the community life for more than a decade, has had enough of the Pond sitting there baking in the sun, while the old barge dock is cluttered with ferries and boats under repair.
In a letter to the St. John Source, Black suggests that “at almost no expense, St. John could be changed to having parking, far less congestion, and … the Port Authority could earn more income.”
The core of Black’s idea is to have bulldozers move the berm around the Enighed Pond port in such a way as to create both a parking lot for hundreds of cars and also a staging area for the car barges; on another side, “moving the berm could create a rental car lot where all rental cars could be store out of town.” Finally, Black suggests that the unused dock space at the Pond port be used to take the ships and what all that is not at the old barge dock, across from Nature’s Nook.
Interesting thinking. Maybe the new island planner – if there ever is one – can kick this into gear, if the Port Authority doesn’t do it. Sounds like all it would take is a couple days of earth moving. Maybe an island contractor would like to get involved.
Since we just found renting villas is a million times better than shelling out $800 a night at Caneel, we miss going into Cruz Bay to eat. The only reason we don’t is the parking problem. We would love to spend our money down there.