NPS Online Meeting on Caneel Bay Designed to Provoke Community Input

What does the future hold for the Caneel Bay Resort, the iconic hotel built by Laurance Rockefeller in 1956?

That is the question more than 200 people tuned in to discuss during an online public meeting Tuesday night.

The resort lies within the boundaries of the Virgin Islands National Park and is now managed by CBI Acquisitions LLC, under a unique lease agreement known as a retained use estate.

That agreement expires in 2023, and the National Park Service has been working with its staff and the public to develop a plan for the 150-acre property which has largely lain in ruins since Hurricane Irma struck in 2017. In July 2021, the Park Service decided to put the property out for public bid in two years, in 2023.

No decisions were made at Tuesday’s meeting hosted by Virgin Islands National Park Superintendent Nigel Fields.

Instead, the meeting was designed to be a listening session and a call for community input. “What does the community think is appropriate?” Fields repeated throughout the session. “You tell us.”

The Park Service developed four possible plans to present at the meeting which are described in the Caneel Bay Redevelopment and Management Plan Newsletter on the NPS website.

In response to feedback following a similar meeting for community groups last week, the Park Service has extended the public comment period by two weeks.

Virgin Islands residents, visitors, and the general public now have until March 4 to respond to four alternative plans presented – and to suggest other possibilities. Comments may be made online at the same website linked above or by mail addressed to Superintendent, Virgin Island National Park, 1300 Cruz Bay Creek, St. John, VI 00830.

At Tuesday’s webinar, audience members were invited to type in questions about the four possible plans developed by the National Park Service.

Three of these proposals include leasing the property to a developer to construct and operate a resort. The fourth, referred to as the no-action alternative, allows the property to remain largely undeveloped. Details of the four plans are provided below.

Timeline for Reconstruction

After Hurricane Irma destroyed the resort in 2017, officials at the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees the National Park Service, assumed control of the decision-making regarding Caneel’s future.

More recently, however, the Interior Department has given the National Park Service the authority to develop a process for determining the resort’s future.

The final decision as to whether there will be commercial activity – and if so, what kind – will be made by the regional director, or the director of the National Park Service, by the end of 2022, Fields said.

If one of the three “action alternatives” to rebuild the resort is selected, the Park Service intends to send out requests for proposals in the winter of 2022. The submitted proposals will be evaluated by the summer of 2023. When the present lease with CBI Acquisitions expires in October 2023 and the selection process is completed, the chosen developer will work with the Park Service to refine the resort’s design and features for visitors.

The Park Service’s plan now sets construction to begin in the winter of 2024 with the goal of opening the resort in 2026 – assuming an action alternative is selected.