POND ISLAND--The building permit for the planned the 450-room Planet Hollywood St. Maarten Resort will be up for public review soon. The resort is set to take shape on Great Bay Beach on the location of the demolished Sonesta Great Bay Beach Resort and Casino.
Spatial Development and Infrastructure VROMI Minister Miklos Giterson said this week that he expects to sign off on the permit within the next week for Balaclava N.V., the company that will construct the new resort. The next step would be the placement of the permit on public review for six weeks. The exact dates of the public review will be publicised in the media. Interested stakeholders can visit the ministry’s consultation room at the Government Administration Building to review the permit.
Any objections to the permit must be filed in in writing and addressed to the minister.
“The eventual construction of this hotel will bring much-needed jobs and room inventory to the island,” said Giterson.
The resort developer is Canada-based Sunwing Travel Group. The new resort will take some 18 months to be completed once all permits have been issued and construction starts.
The developer, when announcing the project in September 2018, said it estimates that when the resort opens it will employ close to 1,000 people at a ratio of 2.1 per room.
In keeping with its employment policy at its other properties in the Caribbean, including St. Lucia, Sunwing had said it is committed to maintaining a 97 per cent local employment rate with only three per cent earmarked for expatriates.
