USVI-On-Line

I know some have been asking about construction noise from Pond Bay, so here is an update in the Tradewinds.

Pia

www.stjohntradewindsnews.com

Typical these days. Bank points to the developer, developer points to the bank, and those who really suffer are the residents of the island and those who've invested their money in purchasing timeshare units in the project. If the permit is pledged to the bank, who knows what the quality of the development will be - especially in regards to the environmental impact.

This is really beyond ridiculous.
St. John now has 3 projects UNfinished
At least Grande Bay is livable.
In reading the piece, I just worry if the bank in Germany prevails and it is sold to another developer what will happen!!!

What I have been hearing is that the bank wants the project finished and sold off as condos - scrapping the whole fractional ownership thing, etc.

When I was there this summer and met the sales manager he pretty convincingly told me that the project was privately funded - that the developer had his own money and that there was no chance of this kind of stuff happening. Don't know if he was lying to me or he was lied to but what a mess...

Wow - a sales guy lying to make a sale. This must be a first in the history of man! If you can't trust a sales guy, who can you trust?

Aren't performance bonds required for these projects?

I guess not based on the Tradewinds information.

Around here you can't put in a drainage ditch without a performance bond.

The halted construction projects are terribly unfortunate, but St. John is not alone. Grande Bay had its own unique issues with what appeared to be a dishonest developer (IMHO), but Pond Bay seems to be just another legitimate casualty of the economy. The Turks and Caicos is littered with failed projects---including Ritz Carlton Molasses Reef (scheduled to open this year before Lender pulled the plug), Dellis Cay (Mandarin Oriental group hotel), Ambergris Cay (affiliated with Greenbrier hotel).The Four Seasons Emerald Bay (in the Exumas) shuttered its doors and was a major local employer. The St. Regis in Anguilla had already opened the new golf course but not the hotel yet---the whole project is now shut down. I'm sure Pond Bay sounded like a good idea to the lender when real estate prices in the US were on a never-ending upward spiral,providing lots of equity to US buyers of fractional vacation properties, but do the sales projections make sense today?

Performance bonds (which assure that the project gets built) are rarely used on private projects in either the US or the Caribbean---they add a huge expense to the project. They are required by law on most public projects, such as road construction.

The only good news is that Pond Bay is far enough along that it makes economic sense for the lender to complete the project in some fashion (maybe downsized)rather than lose everything that the lender already has invested. Pond Bay soon come, I hope.

iowaguy wrote:The halted construction projects are terribly unfortunate, but St. John is not alone. Grande Bay had its own unique issues with what appeared to be a dishonest developer (IMHO), but Pond Bay seems to be just another legitimate casualty of the economy. The Turks and Caicos is littered with failed projects---including Ritz Carlton Molasses Reef (scheduled to open this year before Lender pulled the plug), Dellis Cay (Mandarin Oriental group hotel), Ambergris Cay (affiliated with Greenbrier hotel).The Four Seasons Emerald Bay (in the Exumas) shuttered its doors and was a major local employer. The St. Regis in Anguilla had already opened the new golf course but not the hotel yet---the whole project is now shut down. I'm sure Pond Bay sounded like a good idea to the lender when real estate prices in the US were on a never-ending upward spiral,providing lots of equity to US buyers of fractional vacation properties, but do the sales projections make sense today?

Performance bonds (which assure that the project gets built) are rarely used on private projects in either the US or the Caribbean---they add a huge expense to the project. They are required by law on most public projects, such as road construction.

The only good news is that Pond Bay is far enough along that it makes economic sense for the lender to complete the project in some fashion (maybe downsized)rather than lose everything that the lender already has invested. Pond Bay soon come, I hope.

Good points...I also hope it gets finished as it was originally designed