Best Sunshine International, Ltd. confirmed yesterday a planned and aggressive pursuit of lands currently held by Mariana Resort & Spa in Marpi, one of the CNMI\u2019s few remaining ties to a weakening Japanese tourist market, as the Hong Kong-based casino company now reveals plans to complete their multi-billion dollar casino resort project in the coveted Marpi area where they plan to build the world\u2019s largest water park, thousands of hotel rooms, and state-of-the-art shopping facilities, according to top casino executives in a news briefing yesterday.<\/p>\n
At the same time, casino executives defended Department of Public Lands Secretary Pete A. Tenorio\u2019s decision to bid out the lease to the lands held by Mariana Resort in 2018, saying \u201cthis is a business\u201d and Tenorio \u201chad a job to do\u201d and a responsibility to benefit the public interest. The resort had claimed that putting out the lease to bid would be a breach of its lease agreement with the government.<\/p>\n
When asked yesterday if Best Sunshine would compete for the bid to lease the Mariana Resort property, Best Sunshine chief executive officer Mark Brown said, \u201cOf course.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saipan Tribune asked how competitive their bid is, and Brown said, \u201cThere has been no bid\u201d yet, as the process has not started.<\/p>\n
Brown described yesterday \u201cPhase 1\u201d of their projected $7 billion casino investment, the Grand Mariana Resort project in Garapan, which is currently undergoing construction.<\/p>\n
This would be the first location\u2014along with their gaming training facility\u2014totaling more than $2 billion in investments, according to Brown\u2019s estimate yesterday. The Garapan site is currently the only public land leased to their company.<\/p>\n
\u201cPhase II,\u201d according to Brown, would hopefully be sited in Marpi, rather than in \u201cpiecemeal\u201d locations across the island.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are searching everywhere, the entire island. We\u2019ve made offers to other areas also. We didn\u2019t concentrate only on Marpi,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Brown explained that the \u201cthe design, the site, and multiple properties\u201d that they want to build on the Marpi property would be \u201cincredible for the island for Saipan and would help the people of Saipan.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of the parcel of the land\u2014where it is situated\u2014the beauty of it. [It is] the one piece where you could put together an incredible resort. \u2026Name another piece that big, that beautiful on the water. That doesn\u2019t exist on the island, really.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why we want that to be our next site,\u201d Brown said. \u201cWhen it goes to bid\u2014like any other company that is going to come bid for the site\u2014we will aggressively make a bid to get this.\u201d<\/p>\n
When contacted yesterday, Mariana Resort general manager Gloria Cavanagh said \u201cno comment\u201d as of now.<\/p>\n
In a letter Wednesday to DPL, Kan Pacific argued that a bid on their property meant a \u201cbreach\u201d of its lease agreement with the government, as the letter alleged DPL\u2019s failure to meet commitments to negotiate a new lease, and that any transition of property back to the government required a five-year notice, a deadline that had passed, according to their lease agreement.<\/p>\n
DPL Secretary Pete A. Tenorio also declined to comment yesterday.<\/p>\n
When asked if Best Sunshine could approach Mariana Resort for the remaining years of their lease, Brown said, \u201cI don\u2019t think they will even talk to us.\u201d He also said there have been no offers from the resort for the remaining years.<\/p>\n
Promise of investment <\/strong><\/p>\n Responding to Kan Pacific\u2019s statement Wednesday that Best Sunshine \u201ccame along\u201d and interrupted ongoing negotiations between them and DPL, Brown said this was \u201cobvious.\u201d<\/p>\n Best Sunshine was awarded its casino license in July 2014, months after negotiations between DPL and Kan Pacific began. They sent DPL a letter in August 2014 expressing a specific interest in the Mariana Resort property.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026If Best Sunshine hadn\u2019t come along, you wouldn\u2019t have this conversation right now,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThey would have just moved forward with it. But again, this is business\u2026[Tenorio] has a job to do. He has to do the best possible business deal for the people of Saipan, and where the government is going to make more money, and what\u2019s going to bring up the economy [of] Saipan.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I think when he looks at\u2014comparing a $40 million to $75 million upgrade of the Mariana Resort versus billions of dollars of properties and jobs\u2026you look at the jobs we\u2019ve created already,\u201d he said, pointing to 450 employees, 250 of whom are locals, he said, with more planned.<\/p>\n \u201cWe keep our word,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Asked if Best Sunshine has ever proposed to DPL any amount for the property, Brown said, \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat was the last letter from Terence Tay,\u201d he said, referring to the August 2014 letter to DPL. \u201cThere have been no monies that have been talked about. No negotiations as far as money goes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere is really nothing to negotiate,\u201d added Tao Xing, chief service officer of Imperial Pacific, BSI\u2019s mother company. \u201cDPL has to determine whether there is an RFP and the timing.\u201d<\/p>\n Brown said they made DPL aware of their interest in the land in 2014 but they could not negotiate until it goes out to bid.<\/p>\n Time clock<\/strong><\/p>\n Brown explained that as soon as the license was granted, they were immediately \u201cunder a time clock\u201d to start building on Saipan, confirming surveys of the Marpi property and other Marpi lands around that time in 2014.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was a prime location with a lease that will come up in 2015. That\u2019s exactly where we are going to be in 25 years,\u201d he said, referring to their lease in Garapan. Brown said there could be another company 25 to 40 years from now that will bid for their own property.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a timeline,\u201d said Xing. \u201cWe have a commitment to the amount of investment. It\u2019s our due diligence to pursue all the possibilities in terms of land. Had we not done that, then that would be remiss on our part.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf we don\u2019t find the land, build on time, we get fined very heavily,\u201d Brown said. \u201cBut once we break ground,\u201d Best Sunshine will release within 60 days the $20 million \u201ccommunity chest\u201d fund on top of the yearly $15 million license fee.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd when we say aggressively\u2014we\u2019ve made it known that we are willing to pay that $20 million up front, if we get that piece of land. We wouldn\u2019t wait 60 days.\u201d<\/p>\n Brown said they would create 3,000 jobs in Garapan with their resort. He said they would create \u201c10,000 jobs and more\u201d on the Marpi site.<\/p>\n \u201cWhatever land we take, we will hire every employee that is there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Brown said Phase 1 would open up by the end of next year with roughly 3,000 employees.<\/p>\n \u201cPhase 2, we are talking about the world\u2019s largest water park, 20 hotels, and a one-kilometer long shopping strip. So that\u2019s the scale,\u201d Xing said.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause the beach is really non-existent there,\u201d Brown added. \u201cThat\u2019s why we would build the largest water park in the world, thousands and thousands of hotel rooms, thousands and thousands of jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYour other $5 billion\u2014the water park, there are so many things\u2014we are trying to make it \u2018green,\u2019 we are going to have electric cars, solar, all those things\u2014it just continually creates more and more jobs,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Best Sunshine International, Ltd. confirmed yesterday a planned and aggressive pursuit of lands currently held…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[988,256,175,3077],"class_list":["post-213029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-best-sunshine","tag-casino","tag-dpl","tag-mariana-resort-spa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213029","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\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213029\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}