St. James Group Withdraws Sports Complex Proposal

By Raytevia Evans and Drew Hansen

The St. James Group announced Tuesday it is withdrawing its proposal to develop Joseph Hensley Park in Alexandria into a sports and entertainment complex.

The proposed colossal sports complex included a multitude of amenities currently not available in the city, including an Olympic-sized indoor pool, ice-skating rinks, indoor golf facility and much more. The St. James Group was seeking a 40-year lease on the land, or possibly longer.

According to a news release, the decision to withdraw the proposal was made with the City of Alexandria after documents were recently discovered in the city’s non-public archives and other documents in the non-public archives of the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation that preclude the development of the Hensley Park site into a sports and entertainment complex.

The city recently provided the St. James Group with the information from the documents in non-public archives which the company did not have access to prior to submitting its original proposal.

"Earlier [Tuesday] the Department of Conservation and Recreation advised the City, which shared the information with SJG, that the Department had located records of a 1977 Land & Water Conservation Fund Act grant that assisted the City with the acquisition of a more than 13-acre property identified only as the Lynch Tract," the news release reads. "The records uncovered by the City, together with the information provided by the Department, establish that this property forms a portion of Hensley Park.

"The requirements of the Land & Water Conservation Fund Act constitute a barrier of sufficient magnitude to the development of Hensley Park that SJG has determined that the best course of action is to pursue other locations for its proposed sports and entertainment complex."

Kendrick Ashton Jr. and Craig Dixon, the co-founders of the St. James Group LLC, resigned from their jobs (Dixon from Smithfield Foods, Ashton from investment firm Perella Weinberg Partners LP) to pursue the project full time, according to The Washington Business Journal. 

The St. James Group remains committed to developing the sports and entertainment complex in the region, according to the release.

Last month, members of the city's Park and Recreation Commission and Youth Sports Advisory Board expressed concerns about leasing city-owned land to the private sector.

Though impressed with the proposed project’s many amenities, members of the commission and advisory board said they took issue with exchanging open space that is free to all for a private use to people who can afford it.

“I think it is like giving a site in Yellowstone to a hotel chain,” Park and Recreation Commission Chair Judy Guse-Noritake told Patch following the meeting.