Groundbreaking rites for Tinian Oceanview Resort reset to June

Instead of holding it during the Tinian San Jose Fiesta on May 4, Bridge Investment Group has moved the groundbreaking of its $40-$60 million Tinian Oceanview Resort and Condominiums project to late June.

Phillip Mendiola-Long, the company’s vice president for CNMI operations, said the postponement was due to delays in the finalization of its master site permit. He said the document is expected to be submitted to Coastal Resource Management at the end of May.

“So our official groundbreaking ceremony for the main facility will occur after approval of the master site permit, which we expect to be in late June,” he said in an e-mail to the Saipan Tribune.

While the groundbreaking for the casino facility was postponed, Bridge Investment will move ahead with a smaller groundbreaking when it starts construction of its staff housing next week.

Mendiola-Long said they could have begun the construction earlier but the company ran into some logistics problems because cargo ship schedules between Saipan and Tinian are only every 14 days.

“Therefore, the soonest we can get our containers to Tinian from Saipan is on May 3, which means we cannot clear Customs and Quarantine until Monday at the soonest and therefore not be able to start construction on the staff housing until after that. Our containers arrived on Saipan on April 26 and we cannot get it to Tinian until May 3.”

Mendiola-Long said that Bridge Investment has two 40-foot containers and two 20-foot containers waiting on Saipan for the vessel to go to Tinian .

Bridge Investment plans to construct a 301-room hotel and casino resort on Tinian as well as 268 condominium rooms in the CNMI’s gambling capital. It will be built on 75,000 square meters of land that the company has leased for 55 years.

Bridge Investment has contracted Herman B. Cabrera and Associates as its architectural and design firm, the law office of Mailman & Kara, certified public accountant Bruce McMillan, Marianas Development Corp. as its grounds maintenance firm, Power Buildings International as its local construction firm, FPA Inc. for ground clearing, and Marianas Environmental Services to work on its master site permit, environmental study, and prepare its report for the Historic Preservation Office.

Security Title, Inc. serves as Bridge Investment’s escrow company that handles the condominium sales escrow account through the Bank of Guam.

Mendiola-Long said that they are currently negotiating with the BoG to offer mortgages on their condominiums to foreign investors.

Bridge Investment is a company formed by U.S.-mainland based investors Erik F. Wang, Rudy Pamintuan, Howard Li, Ken Wong, Akshay Desai, and Rocky Li.

The company said it also has offices in five different countries—Japan, Korea, China, U.S., and Russia.