TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin New Alegria resort concept in the paper

In the Daily Herald today the Alegria presented it's resort concept:

http://www.thedailyherald.com/index.php?...s&Itemid=54

Seven-story buildings that close to the airport?

that's exactly what I thought and wrote on another site!!!!

What about Royal Islander? Multiple stories there. While I don't think it is a good idea, I will believe it when I see it.

At the other end of the runway buildings were supposedly to be no more than 3 stories but the building next to The Horny Toad (Las Arenas) is 4 stories.

I thought they tried to obtain permits for taller buildings there years ago and because of the proximity to the airport the powers that be said no for all the obvious reasons. It will be interesting to see if it happens or not, and if so, who starts living higher........ <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" />

Yes, they were turned down a couple of times for the higher buildings. Agreed, maybe not enough money paid yet..

Also can't figure out how they could put yacht docking there. Wouldn't that block the views from the rooms?? And I think that would be another safety issue as far as the airport, putting large yachts there.

I would think the yacht docking would block the view only from the first floor. Perhaps they're planning on having guest rooms start on two. Still, way too tall for that location, in my opinion.

Depends on how big the yacht is, I guess. Yachts also have lots of stuff that sticks up in various places. I thought I read somewhere that there are restrictions regarding boat traffic in that general area now, so not sure how that would work in this either.

I'm guessing there will be a lot of adjustments to their "concept" before construction begins.

Alegria,s attitude seems to be, here we come, everybody move aside while we do what we want to do. Only time will tell if they can get their way.
The one thing that seems to be weird to me is that they have no plans to use the existing buildings after the article says that they refurbished them. I guess that since the plans in the article won't start for three years, they plan to use them while they build to make a little money then demolish them. Also, the article seemed to infer that the other businesses located next to the hotel would be kicked out. I wonder what will happen to those building. I guess that they will be toast too.

The new concept was designed by Vanessa Deleon and associates out of NY ( where new owner is from). That firm also did the St. Martin villa for Alegria's new owner, Ray Sidholm. Both concepts are on Vanessa De Leon website. Interestingly, when the new concept for Alegria was fist on her website several months ago it was listed as a Hard Rock Café resort. We found it because Mr. Sidholms son posted it on his Facebook site. It now is listed as Alegria. Makes you wonder what the plans really are.