May 24, 2001 – The new owners of what's left of the old Yacht Haven Hotel and Marina hope to move forward on several fronts in coming weeks toward rebuilding the complex in an eventual investment that could total hundreds of millions of dollars.
A recent release from PRM Realty Group in Chicago stated that demolition and development permit applications "could be filed in a matter of weeks" with the Coastal Zone Management Commission. It also said that ongoing negotiations with the West Indian Co. Ltd. concerning the lease of seven acres of vacant landfill adjacent to the hotel property "should be successfully completed by the end of this month."
However, PRM principal David Dibo pushed the dates back a bit in an interview with the Source.
"Before we move ahead with demolition," he said, "we intend to have a better sense of what we're going to build after the demolition. We want to finish the site assemblage that we're doing. We're working with WICO on the adjacent site and want to get that finished up."
So far, PRM hasn't submitted its proposal in writing to WICO.
Calvin Wheatley, WICO public affairs director, said the next meeting of the WICO board is scheduled for mid-June.
"There have been discussions" involving WICO chief executive officer Edward Thomas and Dibo, Wheatley said, "but all is contingent on a written proposal … And their press release says it'll be before our board for action, which is true. That would be the basis of any consideration."
If the proposal were to come within the next week or so, he said, "that would be adequate time to prepare for the board to consider it."
The informal talks with WICO were crucial, Dibo said, because "we had to understand what their expectations are and where they're coming from. There are a lot of issues in terms of the use of the property and how everything fits together. It's not a one-way proposal."
He added, "We have to master plan the whole site. In that process, we've got to figure out how their uses mix and match, and how it all goes together."
Development plans indefinite
So far, PRM has done "very preliminary massing sketches, not buildings and square footages," dealing with "uses, rather than design," he said. "We really haven't laid it out. The idea is to make it into some sort of exciting retail, resort-type use, definitely expanding the marina, definitely looking at the yachting community and catering to it in a way that's far different from how it is now."
Design work for the project is being done by Fugelberg Koch & Associates of Orlando, Fla., and Paradigm Design of St. Thomas. Fugelberg Koch contributed island ambience to Walt Disney World as the architects for Disney's Caribbean Beach, Dixie Landings, Port Orleans and Old Key West Resorts. Paradigm worked on the rebuilding of Coral World and is in a joint venture with the local Yssis Group to design improvements for the downtown St. Thomas waterfront.
"When you organize a project of this size, there's a lot of fact finding, a lot of negotiations that have to occur," Paradigm principal Torgen Johnson said. "That's a normal part of the process."
The demolition and development permits "will be applied for simultaneously, and CZM [the Coastal Zone Management Commission] will review the demolition as well as the development proposal," Johnson said.
Dibo was reluctant to project a time line for the overall project. However, he offered a scenario that could cover the next year.
Preliminary work has included technical site surveys, permit pre-application meetings with Planning and Natural Resources Department officials, discussions with the League of Women Voters and the yachting community, and site planning.
PRM would like to reach an agreement with WICO "within the next month for sure," Dibo said. "Having done that, instead of my site, which is about 4.5 acres, the site will be closer to 10 acres. At that point, you do your design work."
That, he said, "would take another three, four months … We'd be in the approval process after that."
Seeking CZM approval — even for the demolition work — will entail public hearings, at which it is a forgone conclusion that some community groups, notably the League of Women Voters, will restate long-held views that the landfill, created when WICO dredged the St. Thomas harbor in the 1980s, should be used for public recreational facilities. "We're not doing this as philanthropists," Dibo commented, but PRM would like to create "a positive environment."
Assuming CZM gives the go-ahead, next would come the razing of existing structures — although, Dibo noted, "we might want to keep some there." So far, he said, "we've interviewed 11 or 12 firms to do the demolition work and are putting our bid package together. We're doing the environmental studies now."
He anticipates the demolition work occurring "within six months or so" and then being "on the ground, into rebuilding by this time next year, maybe even a little earlier."
Retail, resort and cruise components
Dibo views the overall project as a "hundreds of millions of dollars kind of thing when you look at the marina, the land, the retail component, the resort component — whether that's fractional ownership or a hotel, some sort of resort housing. And the cruise lines — there's a lot of synergy in working that out as well."
PRM purchased the derelict Yacht Haven property, unrepaired and largely abandoned since sustaining major damage in Hurricane Marilyn in 1995, a year ago from Malaysian investor Tan Kay Hock for about $8 million. Tan had purchased it from a bank during the Schneider administration but put it back on the market without making any improvements.
Although the project is PRM Realty's first locally, Dibo has been involved with the Virgin Islands for years, for both business and pleasure. PRM's predecessor company, VMS Realty, owned Frenchman's Reef some years ago and considered buying Mahogany Run. "We've been in and out of the Caribbean," he said.
PRM is "not married to one idea" in terms of developing the project and has "100 percent confidence it will go forward," Dibo said. He added, "We're real believers in master planning. I think it's a good time for the Virgin Islands, and that it will be a win-win situation, really good for the whole community."
One of the appeals of the project is that the Long Bay location "is one of the most spectacular sites in the world," he said. "We have a hotel in Monaco, and I was there a couple of weeks ago, and the view from where the yachts come in is very similar to what's here."
PRM specializes in "waterfront resort kinds of communities, residential or commercial," Dibo said. It is involved in a major development of multimillion-dollar beach homes in Maui, Hawaii, and resort development in New York. Its locally formed subsidiary, PRM Realty Group, Long Bay Partners, has opened an office in Frenchtown at No. 62 Honduras (the old Avery's Boathouse site), Suite 8.
Still in Chicago, though, is something that might come in handy as the project proceeds. Tan's representatives "sent us good luck symbol," Dibo said. "It's in my partner's office."
