{"id":777024881,"date":"2025-04-04T04:17:34","date_gmt":"2025-04-04T07:17:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=777024881"},"modified":"2026-04-22T00:09:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T03:09:17","slug":"dpw-to-inspect-ipi-incomplete-hotel-casino-in-garapan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/dpw-to-inspect-ipi-incomplete-hotel-casino-in-garapan","title":{"rendered":"Northern Mariana Islands to inspect IPI’s unfinished Garapan hotel casino"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Inspectors will check the state of the building due to recent earthquakes in some Asian countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Northern Mariana Islands.- The Department of Public Works (DPW) has announced that it will inspect Imperial Pacific International (IPI)’s unfinished casino and hotel building in Garapan. Ray N. Yumul, secretary of the DPW, told Commonwealth Casino Commission (CCC) vice chairman Ralph S. Demapan that building safety inspectors will check the state of the building’s electrical, mechanical, and standard components due to recent earthquakes in some Asian countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inspectors will also verify the integrity and welding connections of the metal parts. Construction on IPI’s Garapan hotel casino has been on hold since the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, the DPW fears the building’s structural, mechanical and electrical systems may have been affected by extreme weather conditions. The last inspection took place on December 27, 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IPI halted casino operations in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last April<\/a>, citing debts of over US$165.8m. Among the company\u2019s largest unsecured creditors are the CNMI Treasury, MCC International, the CCC, the law offices of Hughes Hubbard & Reed, Century Estate Investment, CNMI Division of Revenue and Taxation and Joshua Gray<\/a> with claims ranging from US$5.68m to US$62m.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Saipan
Imperial Pacific International\u2019s unfinished Garapan hotel casino.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

CCC requests US$3.1m budget<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The CCC has submitted a budget request of US$3.1m for the fiscal year 2026. At the CCC\u2019s regular monthly meeting, chairman\u00a0Edward C. Deleon\u00a0Guerrero\u00a0said the funds were needed to allow the commission to accomplish its duties and responsibilities effectively and efficiently as mandated by Public Law 18-56, which legalised casino gaming on Saipan, as amended by P.L. 19-24 and P.L. 21-38.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proposed budget includes US$2,343,566 for personnel costs and US$806,434 for operational expenses. The commission also intends to hire\u00a050 full-time employees, the same number of employees it had in previous annual appropriations. The CCC has been\u00a0without income\u00a0since the closure of IPI in 2020. Since then, the CCC has not collected its annual regulatory fee of US$3.15m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inspectors will check the state of the building due to recent earthquakes in some Asian countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":777009863,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"The Department of Public Works in the Northern Mariana Islands will inspect Imperial Pacific International's unfinished Garapan casino and hotel due to structural integrity concerns following regional seismic activity and prolonged construction halt. This comes as IPI faces Chapter 11 bankruptcy with over US$165.8m in debt, having ceased casino operations in 2020. Concurrently, the Commonwealth Casino Commission, without income since IPI's closure, has requested a US$3.1m budget for FY2026 to maintain regulatory functions.","focusai_entities":"Imperial Pacific International (IPI), Department of Public Works (DPW), Commonwealth Casino Commission (CCC), Ray N. Yumul, Ralph S. Demapan, Edward C. Deleon Guerrero, CNMI Treasury, MCC International, Hughes Hubbard & Reed, Century Estate Investment, CNMI Division of Revenue and Taxation, Joshua Gray","focusai_location":"Northern Mariana Islands, Garapan, Saipan","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (0.85), investor_analyst (0.95), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.95)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"IPI Bankruptcy Impact","query":"What are the broader implications of Imperial Pacific International's Chapter 11 bankruptcy on the Northern Mariana Islands' gaming market, particularly concerning potential new entrants or the future of the Garapan integrated resort project?"},{"label":"CCC Funding Stability","query":"How will the Commonwealth Casino Commission address its long-term funding stability and operational capacity, given the sustained lack of regulatory fee income from its sole licensee since 2020?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,157],"tags":[24134],"class_list":["post-777024881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-business-news","tag-imperial-pacific-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777024881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777024881"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777024881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777024897,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777024881\/revisions\/777024897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777009863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777024881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777024881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777024881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}