 St. Croix Renaissance Park
Port St. Croix
 Site History
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Site History
In the mid 18th century, colonial settlers cleared portions of the St. Croix Renaissance Park site to establish commercial plantations to produce sugar, tobacco and cotton. Some remains of these plantations have been preserved and are still visible on the site today.
In 1962, Harvey Aluminum Corporation, working in conjunction with the USVI Government, developed the property for its alumina production operations, which involved the extraction of alumina from bauxite. In addition to building the site's industrial complex, Harvey Alumina also created Port St. Croix by blasting a large channel out of caliche at the coastline of the property. The Port, which extends out more than one mile from the mainland, provides one of the best hurricane sheltered harbors in the Caribbean.
Over the next 40 years, several other alumina companies including Martin Marietta, the Virgin Islands Alumina Corporation, and finally Alcoa World Aluminum Corporation owned and operated the site.
In the late 1990s, Alcoa invested more than $20 million to upgrade the site's port and coal fired power plant. Shortly thereafter, the alumina market weakened substantially, and in 2000 Alcoa decided to close the facility. St. Croix Renaissance Group LLLP purchased the property from Alcoa in June 2002 and laid out a master plan that includes full use of the coal-fired power plant, desalinization plant, port facilities and other site amenities to attract tenants and create a world-class industrial park.
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