The V.I. Police Department has received a temporary lease extension for the Anselmo Marshall Command building in downtown Christiansted.
The lease on the building, owned by the U.S. Postal Service, was supposed to expire at the end of July to make way for a museum. But Acting Police Chief Novelle Francis said on Tuesday the department was given an extension until it finds another location. Francis, however, said he wasn’t sure how long the extension runs.
Postal Service officials couldn’t be reached for comment yesterday afternoon.
Both the police station and the Post Office, located in the former West India & Guinea Company Warehouse on the corner of Company and Hospital Streets, will vacate so the National Park Service can use the historical structure as a museum.
The museum will be a part of the Park Service’s Christiansted National Historic Site, said park Superintendent Joel Tutein. The first floor, where the post office is now located, will house the museum. The upstairs, where the police station is, will become National Park Service offices, Tutein said.
"We already have a plan," Tutein said recently. "We’re going to dedicate the entire first floor to the slave trade and African culture."
Francis said the police department is searching for another building to relocate to in the downtown area.
"We’re trying to locate a government property to save money," he said. "We’ve looked at the Education Building and Labor Building on Hospital Street. We haven’t made a decision."
There are 46 officers that work out of the Anselmo Marshall Command at various times, Francis said. It has been a police station since the department decentralized in 1996.
Individuals familiar with the museum plan said the Post Office is also looking for a downtown site and that it will remain in the building for another two to three months.
Tutein said the NPS has no timeline for the project and that it depends on the availability of the building. He said funding for the museum will come from the U.S. Department of the Interior.
The courtyard in the West India & Guinea Company Warehouse was used as a holding pen and auction yard for slaves during Danish rule, Tutein said. Because part of the Park Service’s charter is to tell the history of an area, Tutein said that’s what will be done in the proposed museum.
"We’re obligated to tell the whole story, from 1734 to 1917," he said. "That includes the African slave trade."
Meanwhile, Francis said the department will continue to search for a new command center, one that is adequate, accessible and preferably in the downtown area, he said.