First pile driven for new
mega cruise ship pier
By Alita Singh
POINTE BLANCHE--Almost soundlessly the first steel pile for the 445-metre-long 21-metre-wide mega cruise ship pier was driven into Great Bay Thursday afternoon on the signal of Port Affairs Commissioner Theo Heyliger and Carnival Corporation Chairman Mickey Arison. Work on the new pier will be in full swing as of today.
The celebratory group aboard the red harbour pilot boat included Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association (FCCA) President Michele Paige and Ballast Nedam Area Manager for the Caribbean and South America Johan Verhagen.
Watching the proceedings from the water taxi jetty were Lt. Governor Franklyn Richards and Commissioners Sarah Wescot-Williams and Maria Buncamper-Molanus, among other harbour and business officials.
The new pier, to be completed at the end of November 2008, will be juxtaposed to the existing Dr. A.C. Wathey Cruise Pier that was completed in 2001. Two 220,000-tonne cruise ships, slated to debut in 2009, will be able to dock alongside the yet-to-be named pier.
The Dr. A.C. Wathey Cruise and Cargo Facilities expansion will keep the island on the cusp of cruise tourism development, an industry that has seen a decline in the Caribbean in 2007. However, amidst this gloomy report, Arison said St. Maarten’s numbers continued to grow due to the island’s commitment to development, improvement and increasing its market share.
Arison was invited to oversee the first pile driven by Heyliger, the harbour board and management as a gesture of the partnership and input of his company. Carnival is the biggest investor in the project with a contribution of US $34.5 million.
The loan from Carnival is repayable in 20 years at 5.9 per cent per annum. To generate income for the port and help facilitate repayment of the loan, Carnival Corporation guarantees approximately 700,000 passengers to St. Maarten annually, while it will have one fixed berth on the pier and three on the existing pier.
Royal Caribbean Cruise Line has contributed $10 million and has also guaranteed a fixed number of passengers annually. In turn, the company will have one fixed berth on the new pier and one at the existing one.
Refinancing of existing harbour loans by RBTT Merchant Bank for $84 million rounds off the multi-million-dollar upgrade that makes St. Maarten the proud owner of the largest port in the Northeastern Caribbean. Bank representative Darryl White said the island was very special to the bank and RBTT was committed to its further development.
Some 240 local small contractors and labourers are guaranteed jobs on the project. Heavy equipment operators, trucks and hands-on workers will be needed throughout the expansion, according to Silvio Matser of Energiser N.V.
Although the ongoing construction on the Dutch side is making labour a bit scarce, Matser is not too worried about finding people to fill all positions. “Everyone is not needed at the same time, because the work is spread out over 14 months. There is good cooperation with government and if more people are needed we will see what needs to be done,” he said.
The 14-month time span includes the expansion of the cargo facilities to cater to the steadily growing transhipment business for which the island serves as a hub for the Northeastern Caribbean. This phase will be wrapped up on April 1, 2009.
St. Maarten Harbour Holding Company (SHHC) Managing Director Mark Mingo said the expansion project further secured the economic prosperity of the island, ensuring that “Destination St. Maarten remains ahead. We are building to meet the demand of a growing world.”
The main project contractor is Ballast Nedam/Pers Aarsleff, a Dutch and Danish joint venture that was formed especially to tackle this project. Company representative Verhagen said Ballast Nedam was proud to be the executor of the pier project after building the existing pier. He assured the gathering that the company was confident that all deadlines would be met.
All large heavy equipment, such as the largest crane on the island, self-elevating platforms (jack-ups), steel pipes and piles, and other items were shipped in from the Netherlands and Denmark in November.
Praising Heyliger for the vision to take the cruise tourism by the reins and harness it to the benefit of his island, Paige said FCCA is proud of the role it had also played in the development of the island from an annual passenger tally of 515,000 in 1990 to 1.4 million in 2006, a 128 per cent increase.
With this also came a spending surge, from annual passenger and crew spending of $98 million to $224 million. This excludes the amount the cruise lines pump into the island annually which takes the figure to some $400 million.
She credited St. Maarten’s success to its people listening to the needs of the cruise industry and meeting its demands. St. Maarten was destined for success with its leaders planning for it and executing the goals flawlessly, she said.
Rounding off the speeches, Heyliger told the gathering the island had to keep on striving and must believe where the future was going and what was expected. He said getting to the driving of the first pile had been paved by two years of endless negotiations, sleepless nights and hard work by everyone involved, especially the board and management of the harbour. He thanked all partners who had been determined to bring the project to this point.
