A new federal lawsuit seeks to prevent the National Park Service from leasing Caneel Bay lands to a resort developer.
Filed on Monday in Washington, D.C., the civil complaint argues that the lease authorization executed in 2023, as well as current efforts to find a developer for the entire 150 acres of Caneel Bay, are “procedurally illegal.”
The plaintiffs are two non-profit corporations – Ecological Collective USVI, and Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, based in Arizona. They accuse the U.S. Department of the Interior, the National Park Service, and a slew of federal officials of violating National Historic Preservation Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the law governing the NPS itself. The violations, the complaint says, come from an abrupt shift in federal policy regarding the redevelopment of Caneel Bay.
In 2023, the NPS decided to embark on a redevelopment plan which limited commercial lodging to 67 acres at Caneel Bay, and capped capacity at 166 rooms. The plan, titled “Alternative B”, also preserved overland beach access for the public, and kept historic sites under NPS control. Another development strategy – to offer a private developer the use of the entire 150-acre parcel – was rejected by the NPS. According to an environmental assessment conducted at the time, that plan “would not integrate the value and history of the community of St. John or provide a range of visitor experiences.” The rejected plan also “did not fulfill the NPS objectives to provide a strong NPS presence on site to give visitors a sense they are at a national park.” Handing over the entirety of Caneel Bay to a private developer would also fail “to ensure that the significant resources within the Caneel Bay area are managed in a such a manner that is consistent with the NPS mission,” the assessment found.
Therefore, in 2024, a Request for Qualifications was issued that was aligned with Alternative B, which at the time was designated the “preferred” alternative for the NPS. This plan, the NPS said, “aims to balance enhanced public access, recreational opportunities, resource protection, and Park operational efficiency…that is consistent with the landscape as envisioned by Laurance Rockefeller.”
The “Alternative B” redevelopment strategy, the lawsuit argues, was authorized because NPS took specific steps to mitigate the project’s impact on the park, including limiting lodging, keeping key historic sites under NPS control, and prioritizing local business activity.
In June 2025, an executive order from President Donald Trump directed the NPS and other federal land management agencies to “promote responsible stewardship of natural resources while driving economic growth.” According to the lawsuit, this was the impetus for NPS to cancel the pending RFQ and pivot to a new strategy, one which offers the entire 150-acre Caneel Bay to a private developer to build resort accommodations, “the very strategy it had just rejected as bad for the park,” the lawsuit points out.
A Request for Proposals to lease the entire Caneel Bay parcel was then issued in May of this year. This request, unlike the plan for “Alternative B”, does not require guaranteed public overland beach and park access. The new RFP also does not contemplate any limits on the number of guest rooms, and places control of key historic sites into the hands of the developer. It also deprioritizes the idea of doing business locally, the lawsuit argues. A decision on the bids received under this new RFP is reportedly expected in the coming months.
According to the lawsuit, the decision to lease Caneel Bay’s 150 acres is a violation of two federal statutes – the National Parks Omnibus Management Act and the National Historic Preservation Act. Under the former, “accommodations, facilities, and services to visitors” are to be provided through the use of concessions contracts. Concessions, the lawsuit argues, are preferable to leases because these contracts “have shorter terms, face rate and price controls, and operate under strict operating and performance standards overseen by the Park Service.” Further, leasing regulations explicitly prohibit the NPS Director from leasing property in a park area unless it is determined that “the proposed activities under the lease are not subject to authorization through a concession contract,” the lawsuit argues.
The change made by the NPS is also an arbitrary and capricious implementation of lease authorization, the lawsuit claims. The “Alternative B” plan was only approved due to several mitigating factors, which included limiting guest accommodation units and the area in which guest accommodation could be constructed, preserving public overland beach and park access, and ensuring that historic sites remained under NPS control. To then abandon these mitigating aspects to pursue the development of the entire parcel constitutes an abuse of discretion by the Park Service.
“Under the National Environmental Policy Act, the Park Service can’t adopt conditions and mitigation requirements for Caneel and then ignore them,” the lawsuit declares. To change policy direction in such a significant way, the NPS would have had to prepare a new environmental impact statement or a new environmental assessment and finding, the complaint states. By doing neither, the NPS violated NEPA, the lawsuit argues.
The new plan by NPS is also not in alignment with Park Service priorities, the lawsuit claims. Turning over the entire Caneel Bay area to a private developer would be “incompatible with the programs of the National Park Service,” and would “degrade the purposes and values of the park area,” among other detrimental impacts listed by the complaint.
Plaintiffs are asking the court to step in and immediately put a stop to the RFP process, and to declare that NPS actions to cancel “Alternative B” and move forward with a previously rejected alternative are unlawful. They are also seeking to prevent NPS from leasing national park land to provide accommodations at Caneel Bay.
