St. James Group Withdraws Proposal to Develop Hensley Park

The St. James Group announced Tuesday that it is withdrawing its earlier proposal to develop the Joseph Hensley Park in the City of Alexandria into a sports and entertainment complex, according to recent news release.

The proposal included a multitude of amenities currently not available in the city, including an Olympic-sized indoor pool and ice-skating rinks. 

According to the 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 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 SJG 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 today 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."

SJG still remains committed to developing the sports and entertainment complex in the region.