2 work shifts seen to speed up IPI resort construction

Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC vice president for construction Eric Poon, right, and IPI chief executive officer Henry Cheang attend the Commonwealth Casino Commission general meeting last Thursday at the Joeten-Kiyu Public Library conference room in Sususpe. (Bea Cabrera)

Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LCC and contractor Pacific Rim Contractors are exhausting all efforts to finish the Imperial Pacific Resort as soon as possible and talks of having two work shifts have come out.

During the monthly meeting of IPI executives and the Commonwealth Casino Commission last week, the former admitted that they would not be able to finish construction in August as stated in the casino agreement.

According to Eric Poon, vice president for construction, a possible second work shift has been laid on the table.

“Pacific Rim and IPI have been talking about second (work) shift which will start after 7pm until midnight. Right now, we already notified the people concerned about the possibility of nightshift work.”

“The exact date we still have to iron out with Pacific Rim because right now, we have to put the safety features needed especially at night before we put a date for the second (work) shift,” he added.

Poon said that they need more time to circulate the work that needs to be done daily. “The things that we are going to do at night will compose of re-stocking materials because day time we have construction activities.”

“This is why nighttime will be dedicated to restocking materials and welding for the building façade. Those things are in line that’s why we are considering night shift work,” he added.

Construction of the Imperial Pacific Resort suffered delays and the No. 1 reason was due to lack of manpower.

“For the past few months IPI has significantly increased manpower especially from IPI’s side as we have H2-B workers. It helped us a lot to put our schedule even further… Moving along I can say we are back to normal like the way we want it.” he said.

“Currently, we have 68 management staff and 1,402 workers in construction—44 from Sinopan, 677 from Pacific Rim, and 700 IPI H2-B workers… we are still hiring… our requirement is 1,500 workers and right now we have 700 so we still have room to grow for sure,” he added.

With a strengthened manpower, what IPI is looking at is to have additional time. “Moving along, I can say we are back to normal like the way we want it. Once again, we just need time to complete the construction and that’s all we are focused on,” Poon said.