TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Anyone on island??

Missing my tales from "home"..

Weather is calm. Seas are calm. Today is partly cloudy. Tourists are few, which means traffic is light and beaches are blessedly uncrowded. Some restaurants are closed.

That's the news from the island.

Development news: For the past 6 weeks or so, contractors have been gutting the Blue Mall in Cupecoy, removing ductwork, suspended ceilings, partitions, hardwood flooring, and all of the escalators. There are huge dumpsters out front, and heavy equipment is entering the building regularly through an oversized opening. Word on the street is that a development company is planning to convert the old commercial space to residential units.

A development company working in Indigo Bay -- a company that has the worst-conceived name I've ever heard, "Vie L'Ven," which is both unpronounceable and meaningless -- seems to be behind the continued despoiling of Indigo Bay, with lots of new concrete buildings (apparently, they are residential units) being constructed.

Saw that end of July, some real interior demolition going on.

It was ugly when new, not sure how they make it look better.

Thanks.

The Blue Mall was always a bad idea. One "assumes" that they will put in elevators?

As far as Indigo Bay, I thought they were building a hotel there?

Indigo Bay will be a complex of multiple development types -- includes a hotel, restaurant, and many villas and town homes. As far as I know.

Here's some more news: a new restaurant opened up last week in the Starz Casino complex in Cupecoy. The restaurant (located on the right side of Dasha) is called Koi, and they serve Japanese food -- sushi, sashimi, nigiri, wakame, fish broth, Japanese-style meat skewers. We ate there, and the food was decent.

FWIW, here's the story of the strange name, taken from the development website:

Our name, Vie L’Ven, captures the essence of our vision. One fine Saturday afternoon, a few members of the development team decided to have lunch at Kalatua on Mullet Bay Beach. As the sun was setting on the horizon, they met a French couple, and, over cocktails, discussed their attraction to St. Maarten. “It is full of life — Vie in French.” Soon, other guests gathered, and a family from the Netherlands appeared, saying, "We, too, find the island embracing life to its fullest. That’s why we come again and again. We call it Leven in Dutch." Vie L’Ven.

That’s how our story begins...


Don't shoot the messenger...

Bill,
I appreciate the information, and I have no desire to shoot you.

Any explanation for the apostrophe? Since "vie" is a French word, I anticipated French rules for apostrophes in this name -- but in French, an apostrophe almost always precedes a vowel (especially after the letter L). But since "leven" is Dutch, that might explain the apostrophe -- or, if I understand how the minds of marketers work, it might not.