Nov. 8, 2002 – The big island may soon draw some big names in the entertainment industry with announcement that the musical Jackson family intends to get involved in the development of a major casino and hotel project on St. Croix.
A spokesman for Jermaine Jackson, brother of superstar Michael Jackson and an original member of the Jackson Five, said the family's role will be to run a multi-use entertainment facility at the complex.
John George, director of business development for Earthvision International, which Jermaine Jackson owns, said the facility would be used to televise shows and could eventually include a movie studio. "You couldn't ask for a better setting than down there," George said.
Curtis Robinson, a Connecticut developer backing most of the $560 million project, said work on the first phase of the Robin Bay Resort and Casino would begin about 60 days after Coastal Zone Management approval of its application.
Robinson secured Casino Control Commission licensing for Robin Bay last January and the 1,600-acre East End site has been rezoned for commercial use. The project, slated for construction in five phases, is to include 1,400 hotel rooms, an 18-hole golf course, time-share condominiums, a 20,000-square-foot casino and a 10,000-square-foot conference center.
The project could entice cruise lines to return to St. Croix and would be a great draw for mainland tourists and business conventions, Robinson said. "One of the biggest problems now is that there aren't enough hotel rooms" on St. Croix, he said. "You couldn't get even the smallest conventions in there without a minimum of 2,000 hotel rooms — there are more rooms on St. John than there are on St. Croix, and that's the problem."
The cruise lines' pullout of St. Croix demonstrates the need for an economic "shot in the arm," he said, and "my project and the Jacksons and what they will bring down will open a whole new world."
He said the Jacksons will attract a multi-generational crowd of people with "accessible capital." And the longtime family friends have big plans: "We're talking about doing a lot of things there, including the studio, setting up a water park and a Jackson theme restaurant."
He continued, "We decided, 'Let's do something together; an American island needs a stimulus and let's get together and do something for the people of the Virgin Islands,'" he said. "Our goal pretty much is to come down and do that, even if we don't make a dime — but the Jacksons aren't going to put their name on something that's going to fail."
George said Jermaine Jackson intends to visit the island within the next two months to complete a marketing and promotion study. "If they put their name on this, they're going to make sure it's successful, even if that involves having to come down on a more frequent basis," he said.
He said the entertainment facility would be a "platform for a family showcase" and that the entire Jackson family has an interest in being involved in it.
"This project is bigger than Jermaine, who is the force behind it," George said. "They wanted to go somewhere where they weren't going to be engulfed in the traditional gaming atmosphere — they were more interested in doing something a little more atypical."
The pending construction will be good for V.I. industry, Robinson said, as he intends to hire only local help. "My intention is to work the construction industry to full capacity," he said.
According to his estimates, about 1,000 construction workers will be needed. And once the first phase — 300 hotel rooms, the golf course and 100 time-share units — is completed, he said, about 2,000 employees will be on staff.
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