The University of the Virgin Islands Research and Technology Park has been approved for a $2 million investment award from the Economic Development Administration of the United States Department of Commerce.
The $2 million must be matched with $5 million in private investment. Its purpose is to enable UVI and the tech park, named the "RTPark," to build a very energy-efficient, "green" state-of-the-art research park that meets the specifications for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design on the grounds of UVI St. Croix.
The money comes from the federal EDA’s Global Climate Change Mitigation Incentive Fund, whose purpose is to foster a "green economy" by promoting economic competitiveness while enhancing environmental quality.
The tech park is an economic-development initiative of UVI designed to take advantage of the territory’s lucky access to gigantic amounts of fiber optic data-carrying capacity. One of two sets of major data-trunk cables landing on St. Croix, the Global Crossing cable carries the bulk of all communications in and out of the Virgin Islands, and most Latin American telecommunications traffic, to the U.S. mainland.
To date, more than $6 million has been appropriated by the Legislature for developing the project. The Public Finance Authority has also set aside another $7 million for construction, which it will not begin to disburse until all the designs, plans and permits are in place.
The aforementioned $2 million grant is for the main park, which is to occupy a 20,000-square-foot facility on UVI’s St. Croix campus, in the field to the immediate west of the campus entrance.
"The building project which includes the surrounding environment will be a sustainable project," said Denise Kurg, deputy director of the tech park, Friday. "The structure will be designed, built and operated in an ecological and resource-efficient manner. It will be designed to meet certain objectives such as using solar and wind energy, water and other resources more efficiently, reducing the overall impact on the environment while at the same time protecting occupant health."
With this project, the park hopes to provide island companies and tenants with e-commerce resources through the Global Crossings network. This aspect of the project is expected to create 60 jobs, which Kurg said would principally be construction work over the next two years.
Right now, the tech park is in the process of completing construction documents, and expects to advertise the opening of a Request for Proposal for construction of the building project in the next few weeks, Kurg said. The park currently has $9 million committed for the construction project, made up of $3.5 million from the V.I. Public Finance Authority, another federal EDA grand of $3.5 million and this $2 million grant, she said.
The RTPark also has a collocation facility on St. Croix’s northwest shore called 64 West. Named for St. Croix’s longitude, 64 West is the public face for the RTPark’s complete package of connectivity, collocation and financial transaction services. It is leasing hardware collocation space inside Global Crossing’s data center on St. Croix, where it can directly access the massive amount of super-high-speed bandwidth there.
