More urban blight or a thriving golf resort?

As we drive around the island today, we are faced everywhere with sights akin to urban blight: abandoned garment factories, shuttered stores and business buildings with for sale and for rent signs, vacant houses, and overgrown empty lots.

The government is currently faced with the decision of adding yet another once viable business venture and properties to that blight or taking advantage of a golden opportunity to transform a crumbling set of properties to a state even better than that of its heyday in the early ’90s, namely Coral Ocean Point Golf Resort.

I’ve had personal experience with COP in both instances. First, when it was thriving and when our daughter, Gloria, was personal secretary to Suwaso Corp. We have many fond memories of those days, when local residents not only played golf there, but headed down there in the evening to the lounge to listen to Sam Joyner on the piano and take in the magnificent views from the upper level lounge overlooking the ocean and Tinian. When I worked at Northern Marianas College, COP’s conference room was the place of choice for training and conferences, not only because of the appeal of the conference room itself, but also because of the outstanding service and attractive rates. We even had numerous college-wide evening parties there poolside. And unknown to many, it was in those years that Julio Iglecias took a break from an Asian tour and, along with his entourage, jetted in to our airport in his private jet to spend a couple of nights at COP and do some very quiet R&R. (Want proof of Julio’s stay? Just ask Rex Moses, front desk manager back then.)

Contrast those days of glory to today’s COP. This summer, all our kids and grandkids spent the summer here on Saipan, which brought the whole clan together at one place for the first time in many years. Our expanded family now includes six golfers, and excludes me. While here, several golf outings occurred and the plan was to include COP in one of those outings. However, after arriving at the golf course there and being confronted with the lack of service and general malaise of the club house and hotel, our family members left and headed to a local golf course which they knew from the experience of a few days earlier to be in much better condition.

When they described the condition of COP to me later in the day, I reminded them of its glory days. Just a few days before the departure of three of the golfers, a close local friend convinced them to try COP again. This time they actually got onto the course and were overwhelmed with the layout of the course itself and upon returning back to our home, they enthusiastically described what potential the course had and how woeful the current downslide to the property was. That ensuing discussion was with our son-in-law, who as GM for the top golf resort in the state of Hawaii, is an expert on golf course resort management.

This latter golfing experience and discussion was just two weeks prior to learning that it now looks very promising that COP can be brought back to its former level of quality and even better, while generating an increased number of tourists and more jobs at the resort coupled with construction, services, and increased government revenues.

The chance for the CNMI to take advantage of this opportunity to turn an enterprise resembling our crumbling garment factories is today, when the owner of the resort is seeking to extend the expiring 40-year lease an additional 15 years.

Possibly unknown to many community members is the fact that two essential properties that make up the entire golf course are privately owned, and Suwaso has already acquired long-term rights to these properties. Without the 15-year government lease, the golf course will be forced to close (due to the privately owned properties now being unavailable to any other developer) and we have yet another property that will look like La Fiesta Mall.

Still another factor in favor of this new Suwaso Corp becoming a viable business venture is that a significant portion of the corporation is owned by local entrepreneurs whom I personally know to be exceptionally reputable and whose remarkable parents I’ve known for decades.

So what will it be? Another property to add to Saipan’s urban blight? Or a place we can all once again take pride in and frequent—even for activities other than golf, not to mention the economic benefits.