The National Park Service’s downtown Christiansted parking lot-to-park project is back in business after the federal judge who halted work on Wednesday reversed his decision on Friday.
Sen. Alicia "Chucky" Hansen was granted a temporary restraining order earlier in the week against the Park Service’s plan to turn a 12-space parking lot between the Scale House and the wall that surrounds the Post Office into a park. The Park Service wants to turn the asphalt area into a 4,200-square-foot lawn with an information kiosk, benches and palm trees.
Among Hansen’s claims is that property on which the Park Service’s Christiansted National Historic Site sits is owned by the V.I. government. The Park Service disputes the claim.
On Wednesday, District Court Judge Raymond Finch issued a TRO against the project and gave Hansen a week to determine who holds title to the property. But on Friday he reversed his decision, allowing for work to resume on Monday.
Joel Tutein, superintendent of the CNHS, said the project should be completed by Nov. 1.
Finch’s Friday decision came at a bond hearing in which Park Service attorneys asked for relief of the $5,380-a-day penalty due to work stoppage. As of Friday, the Park Service had been charged by its contractor more than $10,000 in accordance with the project’s contract, said Tutein.
"My understanding is there will be some relief for the stoppage," Tutein said.
The main reason for the lifting of the TRO is that only Gov. Charles Turnbull can take legal action on behalf of the V.I. government. Finch had questions as to whether Hansen, acting as a private citizen, had standing in the case.
Finch did give Hansen 30 days from Friday to bring Turnbull into the suit. If she doesn’t accomplish that she will have no standing.
The new park project will complete the Park Service’s controversial move of April 1998 that turned the 70-space King’s Wharf lot into a grassy park. That project spurred similar protests from former Gov. Roy Schneider, who also claimed the V.I. government owned the property. Both Hansen and Schneider argued that downtown businesses would be hurt by the lack of parking.
Tutein, however, argued that most of the parking at the King’s Wharf lot was being used by employees and business owners.
Peter Ross, president of the St. Croix Hotel and Tourism Association, said that in the last 20 years he has been involved with the V.I. government in three different efforts to solve the parking problem in downtown Christiansted. The results, however, have always come up short.
In 1986, the Park Service developed its General Management Plan for the entire historic site. At that point, a deal between the agency and the territory allowed the V.I. government two years to find alternative parking sites. From 1986 to 1989 two efforts were made. One was the current government lot at the corner of Strand and Kings Cross Streets. The other plan was a multi-level parking structure that never materialized.
Despite the lingering parking issue, Ross said he supports Tutein’s efforts to make the Christiansted National Historic Site top-notch. The improvements include a proposal to establish a museum in what is now the Post Office in the West India & Guinea Company Warehouse. The museum will take up the first floor of the post office. The upstairs, which once housed a police station, will become Park Service offices, Tutein said.
The courtyard in the West India & Guinea Company Warehouse, which is adjacent to the soon-to-be park, 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, he said that’s what will be done in the proposed museum.
Tutein said the Park Service will obtain title to the Post Office building within the month. After that, it will be necessary to solicit federal and private funding to make the building functional as a museum.
"With the parks and what they are going to do at the Post Office, someone will look back 100 years from now and say, 'That was a good idea,'" said Ross.