The Tourism Department will celebrate Friday its move to a downtown Charlotte Amalie office with an official office blessing and ribbon cutting ceremony, the department announced Monday. The ceremony will be held from 3 to 5 p.m.

Gov. John deJongh Jr. will speak and tours will be given following the ceremony.

The new location at 74B and 75 Kronprindsens Gade is behind the former USO building.

"We are happy to bring the Tourism Office back into Charlotte Amalie where we are more accessible," said Tourism Commissioner Beverly Nicholson-Doty in the press release. "Relocating not only means a significant savings in rent for the department but also puts us closer to the center of tourist activity."

Census records from 1880 indicate that the building was owned by a merchant by the name of Duncan McDougall and was part of Hotel de Antilles. The Compagnie Generale Transatlantique was immediately next door at 76 Kronprindsens Gade. It is believed that the rooms where the office is located were kept exclusively for steamship passengers in transit between the West Indies and New York.

It seems like a spot destined for the Tourism Department, the press releases noted.