TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Alamanda?

what is the status of the Alamanda? opening soon, I hope

Closed as of today, no visible work being done

I emailed them a few weeks ago and have not heard back

I understand, from speaking to the former MD, that there is currently no plan to rebuild. Alamanda had a condo like corporate structure with close to 30 owners and most did not have insurance. It will be difficult to get all those owners to reinvest. Ideally, someone will come along and buy out those owners and do a complete rebuild but I don’t expect to see it in operation as a hotel before 2020.

At present, however, several units on the second floor are occupied.

Clearly some folks have money to burn and invested it in a unit along Orient (Alamanda, Club O, Mt V, etc) but I would think many would not want to repeatedly go through even an insured loss of a vacation unit. The stress has to be enormous.

This thread about Alamanda illustrates that and makes me realize that the right answer in 95% of cases is any rebuild should meet the building codes to withstand a Cat 5 storm surge and winds. Anything less than code would be built at total risk and uninsurable except at stupid, crazy prices.

My wife and I were on the island for three weeks in October and were told by a few different people that nothing will be done to it for at least 2 years. I walked around most of the beach taking photos for my blog and when I walked into the pool area behind the Alamanda, there were people living in a few of the units. We were told these are displaced families that have moved into usable units until they can rebuild or find a home. They may be families of people who worked at the Alamanda before the hurricane and lost their homes. How accurate my information may be I can't guarantee, but I did see people living in the Alamanda and who were there for the entire 3 weeks we were there and who had wash hanging outside quite a few times.