{"id":279119,"date":"2018-06-29T06:08:24","date_gmt":"2018-06-28T20:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=279119"},"modified":"2018-06-29T06:08:24","modified_gmt":"2018-06-28T20:08:24","slug":"casino-licensee-says-it-wont-make-august-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/casino-licensee-says-it-wont-make-august-deadline\/","title":{"rendered":"Casino licensee says it won\u2019t make August deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With a month to go before the deadline to complete the Imperial Pacific casino and resort hotel, Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLV vice president for construction Eric Pool, second from left, said, \u201cWe are still finalizing a lot of documentation in the extension package during a presentation at the Commonwealth Casino Commission regular meeting held yesterday at Joeten-Kiyu Public Library conference room in Susupe. (Bea Cabrera)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC will not be able to comply with the August 2018 target date of completion for its Imperial Pacific Resort in Garapan.<\/p>\n

IPI is now looking to move the original date from August to end of December this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe development of the resort hotel experienced a big jump and we are trying to [do] everything and get ready for the inspection by the end of the year,\u201d said IPI vice president for construction Eric Poon during the regular meeting of the Commonwealth Casino Commission held yesterday at the Joeten-Kiyu Public Library conference room in Susupe.<\/p>\n

He said construction at the Imperial Pacific Resort site experienced a big leap from 45 percent to 68 percent complete during the last couple of months.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, our focus is on the three areas\u2014resort hotel, hotel tower that includes the building facade and roof, and the external works which is in front of the hotel lobby,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Non-completion of construction would necessitate an amendment of the casino license agreement and the officers of the CCC cannot overemphasize the urgency of the matter.<\/p>\n

According to CCC executive director Edward Deleon Guerrero, talks of submitting request for extension have been discussed many times and IPI is aware of this.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery meeting that we have, we impress upon the need for IPI to identify how much more time they need because August is right around the corner. I don\u2019t think we should be putting this pressure upon IPI so you understand what needed to be done, but I think we need to know who is going to make the decision so we can direct our inquiry to that person to say what are you waiting for,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCCC regulations adopted the casino license agreement so any changes into the agreement requires us to go back and change our own regulation to be compatible with the agreement as we absorb the agreement as part of the regulatory functions \u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Joseph Reyes, vice chairman of CCC, echoed Deleon Guerrero\u2019s concern. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are the regulators and I\u2019m sure you understand our role. We regulate your activities and we don\u2019t want to hit you with another sanction for failure to prepare ahead of time to resolve this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Reyes added, \u201cto change regulations to accommodate your extension requires time\u2026 we are already in the month of July so we got about a month and government process takes a long time. There may be some factors for delay that could create another setback.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poon said they have been working with the Development Planning Advisory Council in coming up with their extension package.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are still finalizing a lot of documentation and it\u2019s not a 10-20-page extension package\u2026 we still have a lot of information that we have to prepare and consult with our general contractor to once again get the construction and manpower schedule. It\u2019s been taking a very long time but we are almost there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poon also assured CCC that the extension request would come from IPI\u2019s upper management. \u201cWe also have a legal team working with our DPAC team\u2026 many people in different departments are involved to get the information together\u2026 and these are highly confidential matters and we cannot release anything until we have everyone to agree\u2026 all I can tell you is we are working on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The request for extension will be the sixth amendment to the casino license agreement and CCC chair Juan Sablan said that IPI should come up with a realistic deadline in the request for extension.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince Pacific Rim came into the picture and did preliminary assessment, you should\u2019ve already known what needed to be done, what resources are lacking. Before it was manpower, then issue with the materials, but now you have materials here on Saipan\u2026 ask for a date that\u2019s realistic\u2026because if you pick a date that is unrealistic that would require another extension\u2026 violations in the agreement require sanctions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC will not be able to comply with the August 2018…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":279127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[3126,3339,14722,12497],"class_list":["post-279119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-commonwealth-casino-commission","tag-edward-deleon-guerrero","tag-imperial-pacific-resort","tag-ipi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279119","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\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}