Beach Condominium: The Sails revitalises Pattaya market

Grande Asset to build twin towers to mark a new era for resort city

In marketing The Sails, Grande Asset Development chairman and CEO Pongphan Sampawakoop said the firm had made a point of differentiating the project from other older sites in Pattaya.

“We designed the condominium banner to read: ‘Splendour of Modern Pattaya’, to distinguish The Sails as symbolising the new Pattaya,” said Pongphan, a veteran developer. “Old Pattaya stirs images of a messy, dirty, crowded and noisy place, full of traffic jams.” Indeed, no one enjoys driving from Sukhumvit Road into the town with its narrow roads and unruly pickup buses.

The Sails is located at kilometre 156.5 on Sukhumvit Highway, which allows its residents to avoid all the congestion and stress in the older part of Pattaya.

“Here the beaches are not spoilt, the air is cleaner, and there’s no overcrowding on the beach,” he said.

Constructed on a massive 25-rai estate, the 43-floor condominium tower will house 151 freehold units.

It also shares the site with a five-star hotel. Grande Asset is looking for a global chain to run it. Among the chains vying for the site are Le Meridien and The Regent.

Before joining Grande Asset, Pongphan himself was an established developer of several properties. Among them was the first resort condominium in Pattaya, called Siam Penthouse 3, in Nak Lua during the early 80s.

Since then, the beach resort has boomed, but not always with positive outcomes as poor city planning and runaway tourism destroyed much of the resort’s charm and natural beauty.

Today, certain areas in Central and South Pattaya can be highly stressful and unhealthy due to traffic jams, pollution and noisy nightlife.

But in the outer Jomtien stretch near Ocean Marina, where The Sails is situated, life is still relatively unaffected by the mad rush on the part of greedy operators to milk the beach town dry.

To justify being a Grade A condominium, Grande Asset realised it had to provide a quality location that would inspire confidence in buyers. It wants to ensure that the site will be free from all the undesirable elements that wrecked Pattaya.

Its twin towers is set to be Pattaya’s new landmark on Sukhumvit Highway.

The company will offer a 5-per-cent discount on the selling price of the first 30 units. That comes to about Bt75,000 a square metre.

“The price will include built-in furniture, kitchens, air-conditioners, everything except free-standing furniture.”

Two key elements that will set The Sails apart from many projects are its ceiling height of three metres and big terrace space, said Pongphan.

The Sails will also have its own beach frontage of 100 metres. The plot on which the condominium tower stands will be divided from the overall 25-rai estate.

Construction is expected to begin soon, and the mock-up show units at the site will be ready for viewing next month.

Both the condominium and 210-room hotel are expected to be completed towards the end of 2007. The Sails is valued at about Bt1.8 billion, while the hotel is valued at more than Bt2 billion.

Itthi C Tan The Nation Published on November 07, 2005