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‘MVA, museum should move fast on building project’
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Posted on Nov 29 2019
If the Marianas Visitors Authority still wishes to have a permanent building on the grounds of the CNMI Museum in Garapan, they should move fast in getting it done, according to former MVA managing director Christopher Concepcion yesterday.
Concepcion said that before he left MVA last April and while he was still a member of the CNMI Museum’s board of governors, the museum board unanimously voted to grant a portion of their land to MVA where it could build a permanent office building. He recused himself from the voting.
“The idea was that, if MVA was located on the museum grounds, it would drive tremendous traffic to the museum because MVA receives a lot of visitors daily,” said Concepcion, who is now deputy director at the Office of Planning and Development.
MVA board chair Marian Aldan-Pierce earlier told Saipan Tribune that, although the CNMI Museum board of governors has already voted on the matter last March, she has not seen yet an agreement with the CNMI Museum to that effect.
As a as a tourism-based economy, the CNMI needs a permanent building to house its tourism agency and save it money, Aldan-Pierce said, adding that that building should be located within walking distance of the main tourism area, which is Garapan.
When asked for comments, Concepcion said his instructions to the MVA staff before he left was for them to work with CNMI Museum director Danny Aquino on the memorandum of understanding between the two agencies putting into effect what the museum board had voted to authorize.
“It is the responsibility of my successor to move the project forward if this is what MVA still wishes to do,” he said.
Concepcion said he set the plan in motion because he’s aware that MVA’s lease at their current building in San Jose/Oleai expires in 2021.
“It’s up to MVA and the museum if they still wish to move [that project] forward,” he said.
Aldan-Pierce disclosed that over $3 million in seed money that MVA has been keeping in a reserve fund so it could build its own building has now been depleted.
MVA managing director Priscilla M. Iakopo said the reserve fund was depleted as the money was used to pay off MVA’s offshore market offices.
