A vision to turn the Outer Cove Marina to a first class boating facility, where yachts, motor boats and other pleasure craft from around the world could dock, is dead.<\/p>\n
Marina Revitalization Corp. President Anthony Pellegrino said he no longer has the funds to undertake repairs on the facility. Thus, anytime now the Outer Cove Marina could silently slip back into the ocean.<\/p>\n
“I would still operate Outer Cove Marina. But the problem is, I don’t have any money to improve it or repair it. When it falls apart, it stays that way,” Mr. Pellegrino said.<\/p>\n
MRC and Mr. Pellegrino’s woes began when it overshot its initial budget in the construction of the Outer Cove Marina. The company estimated an expenditure of only $1.2 million to build the docking facility.<\/p>\n
However, upon completion the tag price for the Outer Cove Marina ballooned three-folds to $3.6 million. MRC initially tried to recoup its expenses by increasing docking fees but the boat owners and tour operators who were then using the marina refused.<\/p>\n
In the end, boat owners and tour operators were forced to transfer to Commonwealth Ports Authority facilities. The exodus translated to losses and financial ruin to MRC which eventually sought a government bailout.<\/p>\n
Help came in the form of House Bill 12-250, which the Senate refused to pass. The measure would have allowed government, through the Division of Fish and Wildlife, to takeover Outer Cove Marina after paying MRC the $3.5 million it spent to construct the facility.<\/p>\n
Mr. Pellegrino lamented why the CNMI government was not willing to takeover the operation of Outer Cove Marina when there are over 1,050 boaters on Saipan alone.<\/p>\n
“We have the worst facilities for boating of anywhere in this part of the world. We attest to be a major tourist attraction area but we have second-rate infrastructure for water sports and activities,” the MRC president said.<\/p>\n
The MRC president also said together with the nearby Smiling Cove, Outer Cove Marina would have attracted boaters and yachtsmen from countries such as Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, China and even Australia. Such would have raked in additional revenue for the Commonwealth, he explained.<\/p>\n
“A lot of Japanese boaters I know want to bring their boats up here and dock them around the area. They can come here in three hours and fish over the weekend or during their holidays or during the lunar months,” Mr. Pellegrino noted.<\/p>\n
He was also puzzled as to why the government was willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every month to maintain the American Memorial Park, and not spend a single nickel on the Outer Cove Marina.<\/p>\n
“With the right government support, the Outer Cove Marina could have been the most beautiful marina area in the region, more beautiful than the ones in Guam. More beautiful than those in Hawaii,” the MRC president said.<\/p>\n
MRC has a 15-year lease on the area which covers 16,394 square meters of submerged land. Mr. Pellegrino has nine years left on the lease he signed in 1995. However, he is afraid there may no longer be an Outer Cove Marina to speak of when the term expires in 2010, for it may have already been reclaimed by the sea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A vision to turn the Outer Cove Marina to a first class boating facility, where yachts, motor boats and other pleasure craft from around the world could dock, is dead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56916","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}