TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Royal Palm not opening until 2021???

Jeff Berger's most recent newsletter reports that Royal Palm possibly won't be reopening until 2021?? Really???

Think he's wrong. Diamond is saying May 2020 for Royal Palm and July 2020 for Flamingo. All stated in a email I received for Diamond. I would think Diamond would know more than his hearsay.

I don't know. He claims his sources are with Royal Palm in SXM. 2020 is ridiculous, let alone 2021..

Don't know about that. Newsletter I read was just a link he put on to the email Diamod put out stating the same dates I did. Other than promoting skymed all his newsletters are just a composition of Daily Harold news articles and other news articles available to anyone on Google.

Sitting here on my balcony at Simpson Bay Resort, Beaumontia building, over looking the Flamingo, there are a dozen or so workers visible all day long. They don't appear to be working very hard, but then I'm no contractor. Looks like there is a LOT of work to be done. In buildings 4 & 4 you can see they have been stripped clean inside and most windows and door-walls are gone. At Royal Palm you can see straight through all units and I have never seen more than a couple of workers around.

That is a different report that was just posted on another site. Lot's of activity at the Flamingo. Here is the post:
"I drove by Flamingo about an hour ago. LOTS of hard hats about. Still a demolition slide present from the top floor of Bldg 7. And a HUGE crane in the parking lot by the tennis courts. As well as MANY heavy trucks in the drive. So SOMETHING is happening....."

I got this thing from Jeff Berger this morning, like a special newsletter. I have no idea what's going on with Diamond, but something is, particularly with regard to Royal Palm. That building should be a relatively easy fix. It's ONE building, one roof, not even that big a building, in the scheme of things. And consistently, no one ever sees anyone working there, or hardly anyone.

I’d bet money that the original building didn’t take anywhere near 4 years to build!

I counted hard hats mid morning and got to 16. Yes there is a crane but it doesn't appear to be doing anything. There are many more workers and trucks at LaVista. For the size of Flamingo, they need a WHOLE lot more activity!

Here is another post from a recent observer:
"You may not see much from the outside but on the inside they will have to build every adjoining wall with concrete cinder blocks ,between each and every unit , the old walls were blown right through. This will make the units stronger and less susceptible to future damage , it take time and planning to gut and redo plumbing and electric the right way , when it's finished it will be the gem of the Caribbean 👍"
It's a lot bigger job to do reconstruction than it is to start from ground level. Plus they still need to have all the special order counters etc to be made and shipped in.

Then why not level the structure and start over?

Agreed, JD. One could bulldoze the whole thing and start over and save time and money.. Scubaman, I guess you want to believe whatever they say, but there is something going on, that doesn't have anything to do with getting the property open as soon as possible.

I can live with it as I have alternatives that are even less costlier till Flamingo opens for our same timeframe. Flamingo will always be my go to place but what we have now works.

I am not involved with the reconstruction but typically you don't just go in and add concrete cinder blocks between "each and every unit" because of weight limitations that were not previously designed in the original construction.

I find it strange that it didn't have cinder interior walls. Our unit at SBYC had cinderblock interior walls and it was built a long time ago.
At least 30 years ago.
Does sound strange.
irina

That is a poured concrete building. The concrete walls are what hold it up. I'm not an engineer, but it sounds preposterous to me to suggest that the walls would need to be "reinforced", never mind whether the structure could withstand the weight. It is simply fanciful to suggest that Royal Palm is dealing with delays related to construction. I bought a week there many years ago, based on my relationship with someone who purchased from the original developer. According to him, the developer cut whatever deals he could with purchasers, including those who purchased 52 weeks. It was basically the Wild West. Between the 52 week owners and the fixed week owners, there are all sorts of financial challenges that an operator faces. And that is what is the holdup here, not "bricks and sticks" issues.