TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Club Orient update

Dear Friends of Club Orient,
Sorry it has been so long since an update. Nothing moves quickly down here. Usually that’s a positive, but not in our current situation.
As we have discussed in previous missives, Club Orient is really two separate and distinct entities, OBC which is Orient Beach Club and is responsible for the resort and its employees and The Corpropriate which is like a Home Owners Association. The responsibilities are not designed to overlap. However, our common goal is to return Club Orient to the paradise we all have loved for over 30 years.
The Copropriate or Copro for short is responsible for the repair and rebuilding of the individual units, as well as many of the common area building like the Papagayo.
We were about to announce the repair and rebuilding of the resort had commenced and with some luck, be able to receive guests and owners back in November or December. For those of you who have visited us, you know the basic clean-up is already finished and the demo is underway. The construction fence is in place, for the first units to be brought back to life.
But, we have just been informed the timeline has hit a roadblock. Because of an action taken by a few people, they have temporarily halted the repair and rebuilding of Club Orient. I am not able to give you details, either in this posting or privately, but the Copro believes the delay will be rectified this Fall. The broad answer is the insurance money long promised is still delayed.
I am sure you are asking yourself how the insurance payment can just continue to drag out. Our delay is not unique for the island. In fact, we understand that roughly half the claims on the island have yet to be settled. Even the French Collectivité itself has only received about 20% of what they claim they are due and the airport is in litigation with their insurance company.
This is incredibly sad news for all of us who love Club Orient and especially for our employees who were so excited seeing the recent progress, to be told they must wait even longer to return to work.
Accordingly, Copro must halt the construction work until the funds are received. This will result in us all needing to take a step back and reevaluate the schedule, but it definitely will mean that no units will be completed until 2019.
This delay will have a serious impact on us (OBC) as we will not be able to begin renting units for the fall and will force us to change our strategy regarding how we can proceed. You may remember OBC received our insurance proceeds in October. But, we have been having to pay partial salaries (chomage partiel), office rent and a host of other things for over ten months. It has taken a large portion of our proceeds to have gone this long with no revenue. But, thanks to the help of many of you, we’re still here and still determined.
We are as frustrated as we know you are and believe us when we say no one wants to be back in our home, as much as those of us who have the privilege of working at Club Orient.
Thank you for everything and we hope these issues get rectified quickly and we can put the construction crews back to work.

So very sad.

I really have no knowledge of what's really going on regarding insurance claims, but Nagico and Ennia both claim that they have settled the vast majority of their claims..

Everyone knows this is hard its harder if you have red tape. May everyone persevere to the rebuilding and im sure ther pent up demand will reward the rebuilding. Too special a place.

how do i get to the next page of comments? not familiar with the new interface...TIA

I guess the Perch and bathrooms will not be repaired by November/December.

Sorry? This thread only has one page..

This is sad news indeed. Sounds like any hope of getting reservations for February is a pipedream. Not sure what the delay is, in one sentence it is blamed on a few people, suggesting that there is discord in the HOA, and further down it suggests that there is a delay in payment of the insurance claim to the HOA- probably a little of both.

candj, I thought I read somewhere that the Perch had opened (albeit a temporary structure?) I agree that it won't be permanent (brick & mortar) by November, unless things really start moving fast. We hope to make it back there August 2019, and I am not too optimistic about any major improvements by then.

Here is a recent report on Orient Beach Forum

http://orientbeachforum.com/Topic/Posts/8876?pagenum=-1&archived=0

I interpreted it as a few people, owners, were maybe not willing to accept the insurance offer :-(