As the V.I. Police Department’s lease extension expires at the Anselmo Marshall Command in downtown Christiansted, Police Commissioner Franz Christian announced Monday that health hazards will force officers out by Thursday.
The lease on the command building, owned and also used by the U.S. Postal Service, was to have expired at the end of July to make way for a National Park Service museum. But the department was given an extension in mid-July so it could find a new home.
In a statement released Monday, Christian said the command, which has been used by the department since 1996 when it decentralized operations, will be closed by midnight on Thursday.
"Due to health hazards associated with the building, which is seriously affecting officers, the administration is forced to close the command," Christian said.
He did not, however, disclose the nature of the hazards affecting the 46 officers that work out of the command.
Austin Jackson, St. Thomas Postmaster in charge of V.I. operations, was off island Tuesday.
In a July interview, Acting Police Chief Novell Francis said the department wanted to maintain a presence in Christiansted, but also wanted to find a government-owned building, to save money. He said police officials had inspected the former education and labor building on Hospital Street, but hadn’t made a decision.
While the department looks for a permanent downtown site, the downtown office will be relocated to the Patrick Sweeney Headquarters in Golden Grove, Christian said.
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 to make way for the Park Service museum. The museum will be a part of the Service’s Christiansted National Historic Site.
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, according to Joel Tutein, superintendent of the Christiansted National Historic Site.
Those familiar with the museum plan said the post office, too, was seeking a permanent downtown site. Meanwhile, it will stay where it is for another two to three months.
Tutein said the NPS had no timeline for the museum project and that it depended on the availability of the building. He said funding would come from the U.S. Department of the Interior.
The courtyard of the historic West India & Guinea Company Warehouse was used as a holding pen and auction yard for slaves during Danish rule, Tutein said. Part of the Park Service’s charter is to tell the history of an area, he said, and that will be done in the proposed museum.
