Hmm.... This ought to be interesting.

I wonder if they have plans to help build the Coral Bay marina too? Just curious <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Wink.gif" alt="" />

Here is an earlier post from a different source:

https://www.stjohnnewspapermon.com/

We're sailing/visiting St. John now. Our on-island friends are glad something is being done with the lot and believe the group can properly execute the project. The lot was a dumping ground and spot for unsavory activities. The lot is behind a commercial complex. As long as they include adequate parking, I think it would be a net positive for Cruz Bay.

Cheers, RickG

I also think it's not a negative. At least the development is in town and one half of the partnership has a prone track record with a smaller but similar project. No kitchens means gusts will patronize the restaurants in town.

I am sad...
I guess I am just old. We have been coming to STJ since the late 70s and many of the recent change/development concern me. Not so much of what is being done, but the rate that it is being done. I know that sounds like sour grapes, but we have some amazing memories and I see them fading away.

Being a bartender on the gulf coast in the early seventies, a musician named Jimmy Buffett use to play in the bar. The place was always packed. The STJ I remember is just like the lyrics on his first song on A1A.

I said I know that this may sound funny
But money don't mean nothin' to me
I won't make my music for money, no
I'm gonna make my music for me

Today we have gone from Music to Margaritaville.

I know I am going to get beat up for saying it - but since 9/11 STJ is becoming Cheeseburger in Paradise... and Kenny has not helped.

We love the island - we love the people - we love all that visit this paradise - and we must accept...

But times have changed for sailors these days.
When I'm in port I get what I need;
Not just Havanas or bananas, or daiquiris,
But that American creation on which I feed!
Cheeseburger in paradise

Instead of visiting the island multiple times in a year...
Now every 2 or 3 years has become our routine.

Best of luck to the developers... For me

Mother, mother ocean, after all my years I've found
Occupational hazard be my occupations just not around
Feel like I've drowned but all were frowned
Feel like I've drowned

STJ will always be our favorite place in the world, but it will just be different.

Lucky you, when I was tending bar in the sevendies I had to deal with the Bee Gees and the Saturday Night Fever crowd. " would you just watch the hair"
I hear you on SJI, I have been back to a lot of places and just say WHY?

Tom: Quite honestly, I don't think there is any place that is like it was in the 70s. Heck, I am thinking of planning a trip to Paris, but am afraid it won't be like it was when I was there in 1992! The world population was 3.7 billion in 1970 and is now 7.13 billion(according to Wolfram Alpha). Remember "The Population Bomb"? "Soylent Green"?

Anyway, you have to raise a glass to Lawrence Rockefeller, because without him, St John would be even more different.

Amen to that! I definitely raise my glass to Mr. Rockefeller for allowing me and so many others to enjoy this island for so long.

Here again, it is not the change that is bothering me as much as the rate of change. STJ has gone from evolutionary expansion to revolutionary growth.

The island just does not seem to be operating on island time when it comes to development <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Wink.gif" alt="" />

To keep with the lyrics theme - here is a twist on a Kenny song.

Everybody wants a piece of heaven and everybody wants it now.

"everybody want to go to heaven, but nobody want to go now"

Ha! They paved paradise and put up a parking lot!

That thing is practically a phone booth compared to this thing.

Water Island Hotel Development

Water Island Civic