South Korean investment giant E Land\u2019s Micronesia Resort Inc. is now just awaiting the Department of Public Lands\u2019 approval of their planned $130-million, 780-room hotel in Marpi which, if approved, will be their first development to be built \u201cfrom the ground up\u201d unlike their purchase of three other existing Saipan hotels.<\/p>\n
DPL Secretary Pete A. Tenorio told Saipan Tribune yesterday there is no decision yet on E Land\u2019s proposed Marpi hotel project.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, DPL said Hong Kong-based Honest Profit International Ltd. will hold a groundbreaking in September for a new $130-million, 300-room hotel in San Antonio.<\/p>\n
Both planned new hotels in Marpi and San Antonio each have a $130-million investment budget but the number of rooms is different, and this could be a function of the type and quality of the hotel to be built.<\/p>\n
Rep. Anthony Benavente (Ind-Saipan), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, separately said yesterday he hopes that DPL will carefully consider each and every proposal on the use of limited public lands. <\/p>\n
Saipan lacks hotel rooms to accommodate a growing number of tourists. This is why DPL and the government are looking at more hotel constructions and renovations.<\/p>\n
Taeho Kim, chief operating officer of E Land\u2019s Micronesian Resort Inc., reiterated E Land\u2019s interest in pursuing the Marpi hotel project.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe top management is very excited about it. We are still waiting for DPL and the government\u2019s decision. \u2026The proposed investment is $130 million. The number of keys or rooms is 780,\u201d Kim said.<\/p>\n
E Land is proposing to build the hotel on almost 10 hectares of public lands in Marpi near the former The Palms Resort, which E Land will renovate for 12 months or up to end-October 2015.<\/p>\n
The Tan Holdings and Sunshine 100 joint venture earlier withdrew interest from leasing the Marpi public land after it decided to develop a private land instead, also in Marpi. Because E Land\u2019s MRI was ranked the second best bidder, DPL decided to offer the public lands to them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are now just waiting for an opportunity to sit down and negotiate [with DPL],\u201d MRI\u2019s Kim added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Korean investment giant E Land\u2019s Micronesia Resort Inc. is now just awaiting the Department…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900,4],"tags":[20,175,38,135],"class_list":["post-177481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-local-news","tag-budget","tag-dpl","tag-saipan-tribune","tag-san-antonio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}