KEY POINTS:
A year after $100 million plans were announced to revive the ill-fated Sheraton Hotel in the Cook Islands, the project remains stalled.
The 200-room hotel complex stands silent, its taps rusting and its interior vandalised without a single guest having checked in.
A big fanfare at the tail-end of the property boom late last year held out hope for the property's salvation after two decades of disaster.
But those hopes for this white elephant have so far not resulted in gangs of construction workers descending on the peaceful site surrounded by palm trees, where the lawns are weed-infested and knee-high, grazed on by horses.
Instead of being turned into a five-star resort, bathrooms have been ripped apart and the site is slowly reverting to nature.
Derelict building shells were to be turned into an island retreat managed by the Hilton international hotel chain.
Last December, Auckland developers McEwan Group said they would rebuild the Sheraton as a Hilton.
"The hotel is being completely retrofitted from the concrete structure," a McEwan spokeswoman said then. "A lot of groundwork has been done in terms of tidying up, demolition and putting in an unsealed road to the rear and a completed showroom. The logistics are almost complete and main construction is due to start in the New Year."
But last week, McEwan admitted the big building job on the hotel never really started and said the project was still at a planning phase.
Cook Islands-born developer Tim Tepaki, who lives at Lagoon Lodges at Arorangi in Rarotonga, said last week he was preparing an application for a new scaled-down project which was achievable.
The plans would go to the national environment services of the Cook Islands Government by the end of this month, he said.
Instead of building a huge resort all at once, Mr Tepaki said the new application would be for just 40 apartments initially, clustered around the waterfront.
This made sense, as people had already paid deposits and demanded this smaller-scale type of project, he said.
Kelly McEwan, of the McEwan Group, said investors had paid deposits of $2.5 million to buy properties in the resort, agreeing to buy $25 million worth of property at the site, once hoped to represent economic salvation for Rarotonga.
But instead of resuscitating the existing abandoned structure, Mr McEwan said some of the building shell structure would be demolished and he also confirmed that a series of bures would be built.
"Call me in another six weeks. Things are a bit grey at the moment," Mr McEwan said, unable to say precisely who the developer would be.
Mr Tepaki said a number of blocks were built in the 1990s and one of these would be demolished to make way for the apartments.
He said the Cook Islands desperately needed a prime tourism brand like the Hilton.
Meanwhile, the overgrown, half-completed Sheraton Resort at Vaimaanga remains abandoned and Mr Tepaki said former Timaru builder Julian Kirkwood, who shifted to Rarotonga to work on the project, had moved to Australia.
Last year, the McEwan Group said Fletcher Pacific would soon start work on the abandoned hotel.
The hotel was to be a $100 million joint venture between the Tepaki Group and McEwan.
The Herald reported last December that more than $60 million would be spent on the project as the derelict shell was turned into a five-star resort managed by The Hilton.
But a spokesman for Fletcher Construction confirmed this month that work never started.
"The project is ... stalled while the developer is trying to achieve a predetermined pre-sale level.
"For the record, Fletcher Pacific was the company we owned in Hawaii, long sold to Dick Corporation. McEwan Group has been in discussion with the South Pacific division of Fletcher Construction," the spokesman said.
Mr Tepaki warned against mentioning "the curse thing".
The property's unfortunate history includes a financial scandal, Sheraton's withdrawal, mafia links and the mysterious murder in Vanuatu of the first Italian manager of the project.
In the meantime, the derelict hotel can now toast 21 years without a single guest.
Trouble in paradise:
* 1987: Cook Islands Government guarantees $52 million deal with an Italian bank.
* 1993: Sheraton nearly finished, but mafia-related corruption is alleged.
* Work on hotel stops and project almost ruins Cook Islands Government.
* 2003: Mark Lyon, property developer, promises to buy hotel.
* Around this time, Cook Islander Tim Tepaki says he will finish the project.
* 2007: He joins McEwan Group and they announce $100 million plans.
* Now: No work starts, plans have been scaled back to just 40 apartments.
