Company woos Zoning to build $144.3M Tanapag hotel
An artist’s rendition of the proposed Saipan Garden Hotel in Tanapag. (Ferdie de la Torre)
A company that is planning to renovate the former Magellan Hotel is applying with the Commonwealth Zoning Office for a conditional use permit for a cluster hotel in Tanapag that will reportedly cost $144.3 million to build.
American Sinopan LLC general manager Guo Hua Pan said the 1,184-room hotel, Saipan Garden Resort, will consist of 10 six-story hotel buildings.
The Zoning board will hold a public hearing on American Sinopan’s application at the Pedro P. Tenorio Multi-Purpose Center in Susupe on Aug. 9 at 5pm.
The proposed site is the 100,000-square-meter private land between Travel Lane and Lissif Lane across Tanapag Elementary School. The area is zoned as rural.
Henry K. Pangelinan is listed as the local designer and authorized representative.
American Sinopan chief executive officer Ken Lin said in an interview yesterday that the six-story hotel buildings won’t be skyscraper high.
To save time, Lin said, all the design materials will be pre-fabricated in Asia and brought here.
“The material itself is typhoon-, fire-, termite-, and earthquake-proof,” he said. “So it is much easier in terms of labor.”
The target opening of the project is by the end of 2019.
Lin said that construction will be in three phases.
He said that, based on the Marianas Visitors Authority’s data, what is needed on Saipan right now are young couples, families, and teenagers who want to explore.
He said these kind of tourists will be their target clients.
According to the company’s application, the resort includes a main lobby and administrative building, two restaurants, two hotel dining buildings, two apartment buildings with one clubhouse facility, two staff housing with one cafeteria, three swimming pools, parking, landscaping, site lighting, and water, sewer and power infrastructure.
The Zoning board recently approved with some conditions American SinoPan’s proposed $350,000 renovation of the two-story 12-room former Magellan Hotel on Wireless Ridge on Capital Hill, Saipan. The company renamed it Heaven II Hotel II.
American SinoPan’s mother company owns a golf course and three hotels in China.
So what about the infrastructure, water supply, sewer, roads, traffic congestion, airport facilities, AND where is the labor coming from. Even IF allowed we don’t need anymore Chinese construction firms on Island bringing in workers under the visa waiver program along with all of the unsafe working conditions.
These projects also need to be bonded and a named contracted Construction Company from Guam or other US areas contracted for the build which should include upgrading much of the infrastructure as is done in other areas when there is such development.