A $130 million plan to build a 115-slip superyacht marina in Coral Bay, St. John, has drawn a federal lawsuit from residents and conservation groups who say the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rushed approval of a project that has been fighting for permits since 2014. Now that decade-long battle has a Louisiana connection: former U.S. Representative Garret Graves, who represented the Baton Rouge area before leaving office in 2024, spent years pressing the Army Corps to move the project forward.
The lawsuit, filed August 10 by Save Coral Bay Inc., the Coral Bay Community Council, and St. John resident David Silverman in the District Court of the Virgin Islands, seeks to vacate the federal permits the Army Corps issued for Summer's End this spring. As reported by NOLA.com, the marina project had been waiting roughly ten years for a final decision, and the suit claims the Army Corps acted arbitrarily and leaned on expired territorial permits when it granted approval. Court filings cited by the Virgin Islands Consortium show the Army Corps received more than 27,000 opposition letters, emails and comments, along with over 7,500 petition signatures against the project, compared with just 13 letters of support.
Save Coral Bay argues the Corps failed to adequately study the marina's environmental and aesthetic impacts, and the group's lawsuit contends Army Corps-approved construction would harm, deteriorate or destroy Coral Bay's aesthetics, habitat and natural features. The group had earlier sued to block the Corps' approval altogether, and civic and conservation organizations including the Friends of Virgin Islands National Park, the St. John Historical Society, the Coral Bay Yacht Club, the League of Women Voters of the V.I., and the National Parks Conservation Association had all filed formal objections, per the Consortium's reporting.
A Marina Idea Decades in the Making
St. John residents have wanted a marina for more than 40 years, and the island currently has no boat slips at all, according to NOLA.com. Summer's End Group — run by Chaliese Summers, a Denham Springs native, and Rick Barksdale, a Louisiana native, both of whom have lived on St. John for close to two decades — includes St. John families, local residents, business owners, landowners and investors from South Florida and Louisiana. The planned complex would serve mega yachts, mono and sail cats, cruisers and sport fishers with slips accommodating vessels from 30 to 150 feet, plus restaurants, bars, a local market, a customs and border protection office, and fuel and waste disposal services. The project also includes millions of dollars in environmental restoration and infrastructure improvements, and would be funded with $130 million in total private investment.
Summers told NOLA.com the project would capture economic activity currently missed by St. John, and she said the Army Corps reviewed the permit for more than ten years and addressed the issues raised in the lawsuit. The marina permitting process began in 2014, and along the way it collided with a rare piece of local history: archaeological surveys in Coral Harbor confirmed an early 18th-century shipwreck within the planned marina's footprint, according to the St. Thomas Source. The find, determined eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, triggered a federal historic-preservation review and prompted developers to remove finger piers to avoid damaging the site.
Graves' Role Under the Microscope
Graves was elected to Congress in 2014 and learned about the marina project from constituents in 2017, according to NOLA.com. He went on to testify in favor of the project, traveling to the U.S. Virgin Islands to do so in August 2025, and advocated for marina approval in 2023 and 2024 while receiving regular updates on its progress. He also criticized Army Corps policies and delays, once calling the agency a complete disaster back in 2013, and Summers said Graves helped press the Army Corps to act.
Federal court filings allege Graves met with the National Marine Fisheries Service in November 2023 and kept up continual informal email communication with the Army Corps to push for an expedited Endangered Species Act consultation, according to International Boat Industry. Plaintiffs claim his involvement coincided with federal reviewers shifting toward less formal interactions with the development team. The lawsuit also states that an unidentified development-company investor contributed $25,000 to Graves' reelection campaign, per NOLA.com's reporting; Graves opted not to seek reelection in 2024.
Graves has defended the marina project and said conducting oversight is what public service looks like. He said no ethics complaints have been filed against him during 30 years of public service, per NOLA.com.
Territorial Politics Add Another Layer
The federal fight sits atop an unresolved territorial dispute. In August 2025, the Virgin Islands Legislature voted 9-3 to reject a bill that would have ratified Governor Albert Bryan Jr.'s request to extend and modify the project's Coastal Zone Management permits, with lawmakers saying territorial law requires expired permits to go back through the Coastal Zone Management Commission rather than being extended by executive request, the St. Thomas Source reported. Two months later, in October 2025, U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Gordon Rhea issued a legal opinion concluding the Summer's End Coastal Zone Management permit remained valid, reasoning that the statutory 12-month construction deadline does not begin until all required federal permits are secured, according to the Government of the United States Virgin Islands.
The Army Corps formally issued standard permits for the marina in May 2026 under its Building Infrastructure Not Paperwork initiative, an effort aimed at accelerating infrastructure decisions, while denying a petition carrying 3,000 signatures that asked for public hearings, the St. Thomas Source reported. The agency has said its role is to provide fair decisions while protecting aquatic resources and navigation.
Federal scrutiny of the marina dates back to its earliest days. When Summer's End Group first submitted its proposal for public review in 2015, five federal oversight agencies — including the EPA, NOAA, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service and the Army Corps — raised objections or deficiency notices over environmental risks and incomplete data, according to Save Coral Bay. Developers spent the following decade submitting supplemental studies and revised dock plans to address those concerns. The project's location also places it near Virgin Islands National Park, which was established in 1956 and protects roughly 60 percent of St. John's land area along with more than 18,000 acres of surrounding marine habitat, according to the U.S. National Park Service, a designation that has kept commercial development on the island tightly limited.
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