Found at: http://www.anguillaguide.com/article/articleprint/5439/-1/140/
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Flag, Temenos Pushing Ahead As New Director Yet To Be Named
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The Flag/Temenos resort project is pushing ahead with its development while the developers are yet to announce who will be the new operator in succession to St. Regis. The project’s management team of Anguillian and expatriate personnel in the meantime held their second media tour arranged late last week to show the swift progress of the work since first tour.
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Some of the Temenos Residences nearing completion
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The team included Director of Public Relations, Arnie Hodge, who organised the tours, Dana Schmid, Manager of the Golf Course (the completed part of the project); Jeff Blake, Director of the Project; Ronan Arrava, Head of Asthrom Anguilla Ltd, the Israeli contracting firm; Vanburn Brooks, one of the Project Managers; and Executive Project Manager, Fritz Smith.
The second tour showed that many of the estate homes bordering the sea-coast were at a closer level of completion and that some landscaping work including the planting of coconut palms and other ornamental trees had already commenced. A number of other buildings which were earlier at ground level were seen as being well into the air including the manor.
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Aerial view of the entire Flag/Temenos Project
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Mr. Arrava said there were at present a total of 52 villas spread across the project site with one large facility called “the Manor.” Every villa is about 6,000 or 7,000 square feet. Twenty-eight of the villas are the custom-made or estate homes owned by private buyers from all over the world. The other 24 villas include 20 residences and the other 4 buildings will service the main hotel of manor.
In addition, there is a new section of the project now poised to be developed with 37 units which will also be part of the hotel, and on which work will commence at the beginning of next year.
Mr. Arrava was happy to report that there were good working relations on the project and that the standard of work was getting better, resulting from cooperation and an on-the-job seminar conducted by his company’s project managers and engineers for the workers from various countries. “It has become like a ‘United Nations’ on the site. Everybody is happy and you can see the production,” he added. “We have a good relationship with all of the workers – the locals and the foreigners – and everything is very, very good.”
He disclosed that the project would be open in three phases. Phase one will, with 11 estate buildings, be handed over to the buyers within the first three months of next year. Phase two, comprising the manor, the residences and the four suite villas to serve the hotel, are expected to be completed by November also in 2008. Phase three, the rest of the custom-built homes, will comprise ten Temenos buildings which also should be finished by the end of that year. Seven more estate homes are to be handed over at that time as well. In addition there will be the off-site Sky Villas due to be opened at the end of 2009.
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Project Directors and Managers at Press Conference
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Mr. Jeff Blake responded to a question as to who would be the new operator to take over from St. Regis. He made the following statement: “Originally the project was conceived by a gentleman called Barry Sternlicht who I guessed was the CEO of Starwood Hotels and together with Flag Luxury [Properties] they came up with the concept of the project as it is now.
“During the course of the development of the project, Mr. Sternlicht left St. Regis and at that point there was a slight change in direction but the project was still St. Regis. It originally started as St. Regis Retreat then it changed to St. Regis Resort. The transition of Mr. Sternlicht left a void in the continuity to some extent between the management and the ownership of Flag and the operator.”
Acknowledging that he might have been speaking “out of his territory” he went on: “Probably about six months to a year ago there was a change in the management again at Starwood Hotels. At that change it became an opportunity to re-establish the relationship of Mr. Sternlicht (the originator of the concept of the project and Starwood Capital Group, owner of a number of very high-end hotels).
“The conversations developed between Mr. Sternlicht and Flag and now we have ended up with an amicable change of relationship. It is not a strained relationship between us and St. Regis. It seemed more appropriate to go back to what was the original concept and that was really what was developed between Flag and Mr. Sternlicht so we are back where we were in reality. We changed the name of the company but the people are the same people who originated the project.”
Mr. Hodge, the Director of Public Relations, said: “As Mr. Blake has said, our vision has never changed. We made a promise to Anguilla at the beginning of the project that we will have a certain level of hotel with a certain level of exclusiveness and luxury and we have to maintain that vision. This is for the benefit of Anguilla which expects that and for the benefit of the persons who will be purchasing the homes.
“The vision was to have a kind of flagship type hotel on the island and by re-arranging ourselves, as Mr. Blake said, back to our original vision we will ensure we maintain that. The original vision has always been shared by Mr. Sternlicht and by having him on board we will continue to maintain that vision into the future.
“When the operator is announced I am sure you will be pleasantly, pleasantly surprised…The vision has remained the same with a high-end hotel that everybody can be proud of and the rest of the Caribbean can look up to.”