Two more companies express an interest in Garapan Annex

More companies are expressing interest in using the idle Lower MIHA property, which is also known as the Garapan Annex.

According to Northern Marianas Housing Corp. corporate director Jesse Palacios, two off-island companies inquired about the property. The companies are from Guam and South Korea.

“These two inquiries are not part of the other five or so who were inquiring. It seems that we’re getting more interest again,” he said.

Palacios said the company from South Korea expressed interest in acquiring not only the Garapan Annex area but the whole block, which would include the Garapan Elementary School. Palacios said the company would have to talk to the Public School System about that.

The other companies that have expressed interest in the area early on are looking to build different projects such as housing, a shopping mall, medical facility, and restaurants.

“We’re very optimistic that we’re going to get more than what we asked for,” Palacios said.

He said the asking price for the property is “not less than $10 million.” This is higher than the appraised value of the 40,000 square-meter lot.

A request for proposal has been in the works for quite some time now but Palacios said they are going to discuss it again at their board meeting this month when it would hopefully be approved.

“The [ad hoc] committee is going to recommend to the board to go ahead and approve the final draft,” Palacios said.

During last December’s ad hoc committee meeting, Palacios said they discussed the outstanding obligations that would be the basis for the price tag of the Garapan Annex.

“We discussed what we can and cannot include in the outstanding obligations. There are some that shouldn’t be in there so we just needed to clarify,” Palacios said.

The final price of the property will be based on the outstanding obligations at the time the RFP would be passed.

Aside from the value of the property being based on the total outstanding obligations of NMHC, Public Law 6-174 also states that the payment of the lease should be made in cash and that NMHC will have a percentage of their gross. The property cannot be divided, but leased as a whole. NMHC can lease the land for up to 55 years.