St. Maarten Private Eye

Fusion - A fusing or melting together, a union of different things, by, or as if by melting, blending or uniting.

Just over a week ago a link was posted in a comment on SXM PE to a project called Fusion Park - SXM, one of the proposals for the EDC land between Great Bay Marina and The Cruise Port. Ocean view which appeared on the Front Page of the DH back in early February is another, or was. Two weeks ago St. Germaine Development Company N.V. (Ocean View), represented locally by Jerry Sardine, (former DP candidate) informed the government owned EDC and WDC that they had seven days to accept a claim for damages of $3 million.
Apparently Ocean View's proposal has been dropped and other proposals are being considered and selected with 'Secret Ballots'. We should all be paying much more attention to what's going on at the harbor and EDC, developments like Fusion are really really a BAD idea. Let me explain....

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First of all, let me make it clear that I really have no idea what projects are favored in the EDC 'Secret Ballot' results, perhaps those are secret too, or maybe our wonderful press just haven't thought to ask. Perhaps Fusion Park has also been dropped, I have no idea, but in explaining why I think this project is a bad idea, I hope to also make it clearer to all of you readers out there how important this piece of land is. A project like Fusion Park would affect us all.

The website of the project makes it plainly clear that the target customer is the cruise ship passenger, several cruise lines are reported to have interest in the property. There is nothing for the local people except jobs, most likely jobs with 6 month contracts and lousy salaries (See Westin Dawn Beach). Everything about the Fusion project is aimed at the Cruise or Convention market, it's objective is to attract and keep cruise passengers from going elsewhere on the island.

It is interesting too, when you consider the remarks of Theo recently about Mega ships and how 4 of them visiting on the same day would cause gridlock on the island. (He hasn't noticed we have that quite often already?). The Today, with it's customary inabilty to understand market forces or think further than their next pay check, seems to agree with Theo that Mega Ships means Mega Bucks.

Mega ships means prices for cruises will come down, putting a cruise within reach of people who previously could not afford one. While this is all very nice for those people and I am happy they get to see the Caribbean, what this means is that more and more passengers are people who have very little spending power.

Not only that, the bigger the ship means the more attractions the ship holds, everything from climbing walls, theaters, bowling alleys, ice scating rinks and lots more. Whatever money the passengers do have to spare is often eaten up on the ship. Cheaper cruise prices are not targeted at people with spending power.

SXM PE have received reports about a new cruise pier being planned, dredging to reach the required depth in the area began about 6 months ago and approximately 60,000 cubic meters of sand was to be pumped up. The dredge operator was then told by harbor holding to pump up approximately 10,000 cubic meters more. This has reportedly be repeated several times now The amount of sand that has been pumped out now is close to 100,000 cubic meters, the jetty project that will cost in excess of U.S.$30 million is no where near starting.

The pile of sand does not grow, it is removed as fast as it is pumped out. It is SOLD to private individuals and companies including (can you guess?) Windward Roads and Koop. These companies then use the sand for public projects and charge the island gov’t . Private individuals are reported to sell the sand for $25.00 -$30.00 / cubic meter. The people or companies that take the sand bring their own equipment and trucks to load the sand. No representative from harbor holding is ever there to record the amount of sand that is taken out.

Does anyone know who the current board members of EDC and EWC are? If you have any information then feel free to share it below.

LH

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