Imperial Pacific International (IPI) is set to request an extension to the 31 August 2018 deadline for completion of its Saipan IR Imperial Pacific Resort.
According to a report in the Saipan Tribune, IPI general counsel Philip J Tydingco told the Commonwealth Casino Commission (CCC) last week that the company was struggling to meet the August deadline, despite signing a revised agreement only last July.
Phase one of Imperial Pacific Resort, which incorporates a 329-room luxury hotel, 14,140 square meters of gaming area, 3,870 square meters of food and beverage outlets, 186 square meters of retail space, 930 square meters of meeting space, 15 villas and 1,500 square meters of spa/fitness area, was originally scheduled for completion in 2016. IPI was previously granted a 10-month extension before last year’s agreement extended that deadline to 31 August 2018.
Despite CCC Executive Director Edward Deleon Guerrero warning recently that failure to meet the deadline would constitute violation of the casino license agreement, Tydingco said this latest extension request is “given what the engineers and the contractors say we can achieve in a safe engineering manner.”
“It should be done in a safe engineering and constructional manner, so that is sort of the guiding principal,” he said.
IPI main contractor, MCC International, was kicked off the job last year after it was found to be using illegal Chinese workers for construction of the resort. There are currently 216 workers on site under a deal with new contractor Pacific Rim Constructors, while IPI is awaiting the arrival of more workers in March after having 1,542 visas approved.
The Hong-Kong listed company has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons in recent weeks following an explosive Bloomberg report alleging widespread corruption among government officials and near zero oversight of IPI’s operations. As reported by IAG last week, Deleon Guerrero blamed the comparatively huge sums of money rolling through IPI’s VIP tables on Macau casinos failing to report real volumes.
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