Plans unveiled for US $100M
hotel project at Dawn Beach
– Hotel will either be Marriott or The Westin –
PHILIPSBURG--The island territory of St. Maarten and Columbia Sussex Corporation on Monday officially announced plans for the construction of a 600-700 room resort at Dawn Beach property, involving an investment of US $80 to 100 million.
The resort will be carrying the brand name of either Marriott or The Westin.
Making the official announcement of the redevelopment of Dawn Beach, a property destroyed by Hurricane Luis in 1995, Commissioner Roy Marlin confirmed the “exchange” of documents whereby government formally handed over a letter of comfort to Columbia Sussex Corporation, which in turn submitted its special development plan and its first request for a planning permit.
President of Columbia Sussex Corporation William Yung explained that the company was planning a four- to five-star hotel with 310 rooms. The resort will boast a spa of 8,000-10,000 square feet, a conference centre of 8,000-10,000 square feet and a casino measuring 10,000 square feet.
Combined with development of 80 rooms at Coral Beach and another 150 two-bedroom condos, the number of sleeping rooms will be 600 to 700. The resort will have parking for 400 vehicles. Landscaping architect will be EDSA, which also did Atlantis Hotel in the Bahamas, said Yung.
The corporation recently bought property from Dawn Beach owner Lucky Bhalla.
Yung’s son Joe, who is Director of Development at the Kentucky-based company that owns 62 resorts in the USA and in the Caribbean, stated that negotiations were ongoing with Marriott and The Westin and that it hadn’t been determined yet which brand name would be attached to the project.
Construction should start in June and, if all goes well, the project should be completed by November 1, 2006, said William Yung, who thanked government, which he said had been “very cooperative” in giving the necessary approvals.
Local employment
Yung confirmed reports that the company uses its own construction company, but all work would be subcontracted to local contractors. He said the impression shouldn’t be created that a large number of foreign contractors would be brought in.
Yung said the company was still in the stages of preliminary planning and as such it was “too early” to determine the extent of local employment. But, he added, “We will use as many local persons as we can.” However, he said he understood that the construction sector currently was “very busy” and that “realistically” his company would have to bring in some people from off-island.
However, with training of local persons, the number of people from abroad will be reduced over the years, stated Yung. The number of local versus foreign workers will also depend on how many capable and experienced persons are available. There is a certain standard that the resort will be bound to maintain. “We can’t give poor service with a four- or five-star resort,” he said.
Training programme
Commissioner Louie Laveist explained that throughout the negotiations, parties had discussed development of a training programme, which would in turn curb unemployment figures. He said it wouldn’t be possible to offer all employment locally, but that the involvement of local persons in the project would be “phased in.”
Commissioner Sarah Wescott-Williams said the provision of training and employment opportunities for local persons was one of government’s areas of emphasis in the letter of comfort. She said government had also taken into consideration the status of the resort.
“All in all it took government quite a while to put the dots on the i’s and cross the t’s,” she said, adding that the intentions were “well placed” from both sides.
Yung confirmed that government had given his company a tax holiday for a period of 10 years, which is the maximum. The resort can also use the room tax for advertisement purposes for the first five years.
Tax incentives
Wescott-Williams announced that government was looking at drafting legislation to provide tax incentives for developers that want to bring brand names to the island. She said provision was made in the governing programme 2003-2006 for the granting of these tax incentives.
Marlin explained that infrastructure would be put in place to upgrade the area of construction. The road leading to Dawn Beach, which is now in a bad state of repair, will be redeveloped. Included in the upgrading will be the road leading into Dawn Beach that starts at Defiance.
The road will be realigned somewhat and quality will be similar to that of Link One or Oyster Pond Road. Government will start in August or September for the road to be ready in the first or second quarter of 2006. The project will be put up for public bidding. Utilities will be put in through a joint effort of the utility companies.
Positive aspects
Commissioner Laveist urged people to focus on the positive aspects of this project. He said that until now focus had been on what most consider St. Maarten’s “most valuable” property, Mullet Bay, and the negative aspects of this property that was destroyed by Hurricane Luis. He said the project at Dawn Beach should be seen as an “endorsement of confidence” in the island and in government.
With 20,000 hotel rooms Columbia Sussex Corporation is the largest privately held owner of full service hotels in the US, with approximately US $2.5 billion in assets at the end of 2003. The company owned and operated 62 hotels and six casinos in the US and Caribbean at that time.
Many of these hotels carry brand names, such as The Westin, Marriott, Renaissance, Courtyard Marriott, Crowne Plaza, Radisson and Holiday Inn.
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