Aerial shot of the Cemetery in St. Thomas. Photo Credit: ERNICE GILBERT, V.I. CONSORTIUM.
Cemetery expansion and the maximization of available space in that regard, remains a priority for the Department of Public Works as it prepares for another fiscal year. When the Department appeared before the Committee on Budget, Appropriations, and Finance on Wednesday, Commissioner Derek Gabriel seized the opportunity to remind lawmakers of the importance of doing so, particularly in the St. Thomas/St. John district.
“Conversations with property owners are ongoing, but funding will be necessary,” he said.
Senator Marvin Blyden, who has “linked” DPW with a land owner for prospective cemetery expansion, sought an update. “We've been speaking to a couple different landowners about acquiring space that they have,” Mr. Gabriel explained. Responses, however, have been “hot and cold.”
“In the last, I would say, six months, we've gotten some renewed interest from one of the property owners. So we are ongoing. But again, even once we are able to work with Property and Procurement to negotiate a sale price, we still need to identify the funds,” the commissioner said. The Department of Public Works currently has no money set aside to purchase land for cemetery expansion.
“A lot of the money that we're using from our Cemetery Fund, we're actually using to make necessary upgrades and repairs,” he explained.
Rehabilitative work is near completion on St. Thomas’ Western Cemetery. “The project focuses on the perimeter wall and signage and is expected to be complete by September 2025. The wall is about 90% complete,” Mr. Gabriel reported. Painting, gate installation, monument signs, stonework, sidewalks, and “additional lettering along the cemetery walls” is pending.
“We are entertaining a true public private partnership with a landscaping company to possibly donate summer landscaping for the Western Cemetery,” Mr. Gabriel told Senator Dwayne DeGraff. DPW currently manages a “small line item” for landscaping but “really want to make it nice.” “It's the entrance to the historic district of Charlotte Amalie,” the commissioner added. “We're going to be going out to some of our landscapers here to ask them to assist us with donated flowers and services to make that look really nice.”
In Frederiksted, DPW is working on a scope to repair that cemetery’s wall, an update requested by Senator Franklin Johnson.
To maximize space in cemeteries across the territory, DPW is pressing ahead with the intention to also construct columbariums where possible.
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