Breaking news: Inn at Loreto Bay to possibly re-open under FONATUR control
(UPDATE 6/18/09: safe to say this was a wild rumor, and the source was incorrect, at least about the Inn and Golf Course opening. Currently workers are striking, marching streets of Loreto Bay.)
(UPDATE @ 2:34pm pacific: additional sources suggest this may not be happening as reported by The Tribuna de Los Cabos, and could possibly be politically motivated. Others are speculating the Inn will re-open, but it will take longer than originally reported. Stay tuned.)
An article today in the Tribuna de Los Cabos indicates that the Inn at Loreto Bay will re-open, just days after shutting down last week due to TSD Loreto Partners ceasing operation. The governor Narciso Agundez Montano made the request to the director general, Miguel Gomez Mont, at FONATUR.
Some other highlights from the article:
- The golf course will also re-open today
- TSD Loreto Partners has declared bankruptcy
- AeroMexico will resume flights in July
- The move is purported to help accelerate the sale of the Inn, golf course and Loreto Bay development
- The new Loreto (LTO) airport terminal may also be opening at the same time
“Most important of all this it is that the hotel will re-initiate operations this Monday and that the problem is solved and the preoccupation that had generated the closing of the golf course, since if this one practically does not receive the necessary maintenance it loses and a month less than. The golf course is attractive an important one in Loreto and its loss would be a hard blow that hardly would recover this tourist destiny”, maintained the head of the state Executive. (note: transalated from Spanish)
This makes a lot of sense if the story turns out to be true. The Mexican government should step-up wherever possible to restore the tarnished image of Mexico as a tourist destination. Recent events such as the Swine Flu and the on-going drug wars have not helped the country whose economy relies so heavily on tourism and direct foreign investment.
Further, recently failed projects such as the port development in Puerto Escondido can quickly de-generate into eye sores, and reminders of the challenges of successfully building in the Loreto and Nopolo regions.
Early reports from the ground in Loreto, Baja California Sur, however, still suggest no activity is taking place and that the Inn is still closed.
[Source: Tribuna de Los Cabos]
Clinton StarkCo-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, Fan of Napa (and Diet Coke)
Clint co-founded StarkSilverCreek and writes about social media, arts, wine, indie film, and his trusty Droid. An aging ice hockey player, he tries in vain to direct Loni in SSC videos. Originally from Ottawa, Canada, Clint is a Silicon Valley and new media entrepreneur. From the early PC clone days in the 80’s, to the explosion of telecom and networking in the 90’s, and now to social networking, Web 2.0 and software-as-a-service, Clint has successfully built businesses and start-ups into multi-million dollar operations. Recently as VP marketing he spearheaded the launch of a $110M company. But that was then.
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The latest from Loreto is that this article is a bit of Mexican political posturing. It is election season in Baja Sur. The hotel is NOT open, there is no indication that the golf course is open, TSD Loreto Partners has NOT declaired bankrupcy. And finally, if you go to the AeroMexico website, you will see that they are not at this time selling airline tickets to Loreto. There are no comments from the area about when the new terminal at the airport will open.
There used to be a time (not long ago) when the people would have no information and could be manipulated.
Now we have so much information that we don’t know what the truth is. It would be nice to find some truth in this article but I think we are all skeptical now.
I LOVE LORETO!!
There is nobody, that has spent time in Loreto, who does NOT love Loreto. It is a truly magical place!. Ther is no good reason inmy mind why this development should not succeed.
Would you live in Loretto year-round? And please guesstimate miles
to San Diego. I need a nice location for a gringo sailing school.
Thankyou, Jeane Bice
San Diego to Loreto by car….725 miles!
In reference to the rumor that LB has been sold, I found this tidbit on Politico Radar from last week:
already have one of the families, the national capital with a major presence in the Los Cabos area, might be interested in the purchase of Loreto Bay, spoke of the family SANCHEZ NAVARRO has shown some interest, in fact, ran rumor spot that on Wednesday visited the project, will have to wait as this project develops …
Here is information about the family:
Another fine example of golf resort development began in 1982, when Eduardo Sanchez Navarro (heir to the Corona Beer family) set his sights on over 3,000 acres between San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas. At that time, there were only 400 hotel rooms in Los Cabos, and less than one-third of those were considered first-class. This sloping land full of cactus and scrub brush, along with continuous views of the ocean, is now the master-planned area called Cabo Real Beach and Golf Resort.
It if it is true, they should be able to finish the project. Take a look at their portfolio:
http://www.questro.com.mx/about_en.php
Here’s hoping……
i have a friend who knows Eduardo Sancez Navarro. He says they are experiencing problems in Cabo “too much inventory”. I also suspect that the Fonatur’s problems extend well beyond Loreto given the state of the tourist economy in Mexico.
Is it true or is it false? Who knows! How could a government entity (Fonatur) just re-open a closed hotel when that hotel is private-property owned by a US banking giant (giant, but weak in the knees!) unless there is some sort of pre-existing stipulation (when it was purchased) or Mexican law allowing this! That’d be like the US Federal Government stepping in to re-open ‘Mervyn’s’ stores because there were lots of loyal shoppers and we liked their “Open, open, open” commercials!
I cast my vote for a company like “Questro” to take over the controls and see what happens when it is locally owned and operated!
Loreto Bay Inn, Golf & Agua Viva Home Construction….please “open, open, open” some day real soon!
TSD Loreto’s contract to build Loreto Bay is with FONATUR. In the end, Citibank owned the majority of TSD Loreto’s shares, but the “contract” is still with FONATUR. If they defaulted on the contract, it could make sense that FONATUR would step in and take over.
Friends,
These are certainly tough times around Loreto Bay. You can hear a pin drop on the boulevard through Founders. Skeleton crews are tidying loose ends in various completed houses while unfinished homes see no activity as contractors, uncertain of the financial damage which may result from Loreto Bay’s recent decisions, cut back.
We at West Coast Millworks have been here since day 1. We saw the early administration arrive with huge optimism and set to. After a year of marginal progress a new administration arrived to supplant the first and so on until upwards of a half a dozen had come and gone.
We had managers come in our office and threaten…”you’d better be prepared. We’re going to do 100 custom homes this year”. One got built.
We continued to produce our products through the years. We taught the contractors how important it was to control dimensions so that a production kitchen could be delivered and installed without having to be hacked apart to fit. The early homes were all over the map in terms of finished measurements and finally we had to stop delivering product to homes that were not built according to the dimensions supplied by Loreto Bay. In Mexico the usual system was to build the room and fit everything else afterward. In a project where upwards of 500 homes were being built, that didn’t work. In our case, that would mean that every kitchen would be custom.
The contractors finally got the picture after we stopped delivering. We held each builder responsible for the finished dimensions and soon the homes were, by and large, much closer to the original plans. We could pre-manufacture our kitchens in production runs and expect them to fit. The overall efficiency and quality began to improve as everyone began to understand the rules and the importance of following a plan.
Since day1, we had problems with Loreto Bay staying current on payment. We were putting in huge amounts of product and then carrying the costs of 60 employees, shop costs, material and installation for sometimes 60 days or more and then only getting token payments. Each time the administration changed we had to work at getting a working relationship established and sometimes met with “Who the hell are these guys and why should I pay them” kinds of attitudes. Never did we feel we were supported or part of a team effort to produce quality homes for the paying owners. It has always been a “us against them” kind of situation where we felt our backs against the wall on far too many occasions.
Now we see what may be the last of these “administrations”. We, like many others, are owed money that we can only pray for. We stopped working for Loreto Bay Company in December when it became apparent that monies were not forthcoming (for products installed in the homes in Cluster 14, which homeowners are now enjoying and for which we have received only partial payment). and we could not dig ourselves in any deeper. This last adminstation took a hostile attitude towards us as we continued to press for payment. Soon we were seeing an effort to undermine our good reputation for fine products and services by certain individuals in the construcion department. While other vendors and contributors to Cluster 14 were paid, we were not. LB continued to build AV using new contractors (we had the letter of intent to produce millwork in Agua Viva but could not go forward considering the debt) and alloting funds for construction while others hadn’t been paid for the last cluster (14) in the Founders.
The long and short of this historical perspective is that this latest administration is now gone and we are still here producing what we do well…high quality millwork products for contractors and homeowners. We are not shutting the doors and bolting for Canada. We have a loyal staff (albeit a fraction of the employee rolls we had) and we are trying to keep some employment opportunities available to Loretanos. We love where we live and the work we do.
Please check out our website at http://www.wcmillworks.com
All the best,
Bryan Evans
Sales and Installations
West Coast Millworks
Hi Bryan,
I am sorry to hear that you were left in such a lurch by the Loreto Bay administration. I know you folks to be of high honor and integrity, and if anyone deserves to be paid it is certainly you.
you could have seen this coming for a long time, lot of mismanagement….
what a shame that many of the same people that brought the project down are still around trying to survive by spreading fears…