VIRGIN GRAND / HILLSIDE / POOL VILLAS
October 2021
Dear Fellow Member of the Virgin Grand Villas Condominium Owners Association:
As your owner-elected directors, we recently participated in a conference call meeting of the Board of Directors. This is the first of two fall reports to you; we’ll send another after the Board’s November meeting to settle on the 2022 budget.
Resort booming
After a year in which the Covid epidemic reduced use of the resort (and the governor of the Virgin Islands restricted hotel and resort use for a period), the Westin St. John is back in nearly full operation (beaches in the Virgin Islands are still closed after 4 PM). The average occupancy is more than 90% most days, with owners and their guests comprising about 70% of that total. The resort continues to take extraordinary measures to protect owners and guests from Covid. At the time of writing this report, it is still necessary to have a negative Covid test within five days before flying to the Virgin Islands. In addition, all staff associates have their temperature taken and are assessed for symptoms before they begin to work each day and are directed not to work if there are concerns. Any associate who tests positive must quarantine. Masks continue to be required for everyone in all indoor areas except individual units. Masks are available for free at several locations including the Mango Deli and the shuttle carts.
Maintenance fees and insurance premiums
Vistana recently sent you a copy of the budget that management has proposed. As its cover letter noted, the proposal has been reviewed, but not yet approved by the Board of Directors of the Association. While the 2022 budget has not yet been finalized, we can provide insight that a large portion of the increase is driven more by spikes in property insurance premiums, more than by any other factor. The premium rate will remain the same as in 2021, but the total insured value of Virgin Grand, determined by the insurance industry, has increased from $42 million to $65 million. As a result, the maintenance fee for each unit-week will include $441 for property insurance premiums (less for studios, more for larger-than-average units). The main reason for such a sharp increase is that the appraising company used by the insurance companies had been using mainland replacement costs for our property and is now using the cost of replacing buildings and contents in the Virgin Islands. A secondary reason is that Virgin Grand now must pay its share of the insurance premiums for the buildings in the common areas, such as the lobbies. Additionally, there is an excise tax imposed by the Virgin Islands on materials and goods brought to the island.
We will send a more detailed report on the 2022 maintenance fee, and the cause of each significant component of it, in November. We recognize that the significant increase in the maintenance fee will make continued ownership in the resort unattractive to some owners. We have therefore informed our fellow Board members that we plan to vote against this budget unless Marriott Vacation Worldwide institutes a reasonable repurchase program for owners who want to take advantage of it.
Restaurant
Management continues to review options for reopening Lemongrass restaurant, and it hopes finalize a plan to open the restaurant for daily breakfast and dinner early in 2022. Meanwhile, dinners will be served in Lemongrass approximately twice a week as part of special offerings served from the existing Snorkels outlet. Snorkels remains open for meals three times a day.
HVAC improvements
This summer and fall, General Manager Eugene Martin has overseen the work on the final phase of improving the HVAC systems in several of the villas, as recommended by outside engineers, to improve system effectiveness. Work on the hillside villas has been completed, and work on several pool villa units is expected to be completed by the end of October.
Foreclosure procedures
Nearly ten percent of owners are delinquent in their maintenance payments, requiring other owners to make up the difference to cover fixed costs. Covering this bad debt represents about five percent of other owners’ annual maintenance fees. Until now, foreclosure on the unit-weeks of the delinquent owners has been a costly and time-consuming process for our Association. However, the Virgin Islands legislature passed a law this summer providing for non-judicial foreclosure, which will enable us to foreclose on delinquent owners much more quickly and at a lower cost. Please pay your maintenance fees on time. Do not be one of the owners who burdens other owners and becomes subject to foreclosure.
A new wall in buildings 41 and 42?
Nearly all owners of units in buildings 41 and 42 (and one unit in building 43) desire a wall to be built upstairs to replace the sliding panels that separate what are supposed to be two bedrooms. Longtime owners will recall that about six or seven years ago, the previous developer stated that no wall could be constructed without the affirmative consent of every owner of a particular unit, and a survey showed that at least one such owner objected or didn’t respond to inquiries. The new developer is willing to allow the Association to construct the new walls if outside counsel determines that we could do so by vote of the Board or of the Association Membership. On behalf of the association, management is now obtaining an opinion from local outside counsel.
A personal note from Philip Schrag
This is my next-to-last report to owners. I have decided not to run for a fifth three-year term on the Board of Directors. Twelve years is enough, and it is time to turn over the responsibilities of this position to my wonderful co-elected-director David Futransky and to the next owner-elected board member, whom you will choose this winter.
As an owner of four unit-weeks in Virgin Grand, it is my hope that the owner who succeeds me on the board will be as vigorous a representative of owner interests as were the other volunteer owner-elected directors with whom I have served: Bob Werbel, Larry Pelletier, and David Futransky. Please consider running for election if you can be that ardent advocate for owners. Do not run under a mistaken impression that the position involves glamorous free travel to our favorite resort. To the contrary, most meetings of the Board are by conference call, and most of the hard work of being an elected Board member is done between meetings. Vistana will be sending you a description of the job which I wrote and the Board approved some years ago, but let me highlight what I think are the most important duties of elected directors:
I have very much enjoyed working for you and corresponding with many of you since 2010. I am proud of many of the changes and policies that my co-elected-directors and I have suggested over the years, including the hurricane contingency fund that saved us from a special assessment after Hurricane Irma, the freecycle shed and beach chair restocking fund, and the drinking fountains, shade sails and shaded benches at the hillside pools. I leave it to David and to my successor to continue to press so that our resort remains our wonderful home away from home.
David Futransky
[email protected]
Philip Schrag
[email protected]
*****************************************************************************************
July 2020
Dear Fellow Virgin Grand Villas Owner:
As your owner-elected representatives on the Board of Directors, we recently participated in a conference call meeting of the Board. The agenda for this meeting was fairly short, so this is a relatively short report.
State of resort operations following the COVID-19 shutdown
During a period this spring of rising numbers of COVID-19 cases nationally, including a few in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands prohibited new arrivals at hotels and timeshares during parts of April, May, and June. The Governor’s restrictions have partially ended, and the Westin St. John is again accepting guests, with 90% occupancy expected during the July 4 week.
The resort associates, led by General Manager Eugene Martin, are taking many precautions to prevent an outbreak of the virus at the resort. As of June 22, there have been no instances of virus at the resort, and the precautions in place include:
The operational situation at the resort may change from time-to-time in accordance with risk factors associated with the pandemic and directions from the USVI government.
To stay up-to-date on COVID-19 in the U.S. Virgin Islands, please visit: https://usviupdate.com/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19-updates/
To stay up to date on the operational status of the resort, please visit: https://hub.vacationclub.com/resort-updates/
Remediation project
Contractors have continued to work to remediate the buildings/units that experienced or were at risk of experiencing microbial damage after the new HVAC equipment was installed. Chilled water pipes are being insulated, attics are being insulated to prevent condensation on the pipes, and temperature and humidity sensors are being installed in the attics. Signs are being posted in all units to remind owners to leave all doors and windows closed and to leave the air conditioning system running at all times. It may be counterintuitive to use electrical energy on air conditioning rather than to allow outside air into the units, but this is essential to keep the humidity at low enough levels to prevent the growth of mold in the units. So once again we add our own request that you not leave patio doors open, as this turns off the air conditioner and lets tropical moisture into the rooms.
Land parcel up the hill from Virgin Grand
At the March Annual and Board meetings, it was noted that Westin St. John Hotel Company, Inc. (“WSJHC”) was seeking a buyer for a parcel of land above Virgin Grand on which four luxury homes could be built. An issue was raised about road access to those homes, because Virgin Grand has historically been opposed to increased traffic through the Virgin Grand property. WSJHC has informed us that the current land parcel does have easements rights to the road through Virgin Grand but that it is looking for options where access to that property would not be via the existing road.
Also in March, an owner pointed out that the map showing the property that WSJHC wanted to sell included a few square yards of the access road, at the hairpin turn, to buildings 33 and 34, and that a new owner of property that included those few square yards could cut off access to those buildings. The Management Company assured us that if those square yards were to be included in the property sold, an easement for access to our buildings would be retained.
Developer purchase of unit-weeks that owners no longer desire
Last September, Marriott Vacations Worldwide (“MVW”) officials informed us that MVW was considering a possible program to purchase some unit-weeks that owners no longer desire. However, the pandemic suspended sales of timeshare properties and of consideration of the plan. MVW hopes to present an update this fall.
Foreclosure process
At present, when an owner is delinquent in maintenance fee payments, the owner is locked out, the unit-week is liened, and the owner is subject to foreclosure litigation. The Association refers the matter to an attorney who handles the litigation. When the unit-week has been foreclosed upon, it becomes Association-owned inventory and we annually offer it to MVW. If MVW declines to purchase it in bulk, we then offer it to current owners at extremely low prices.
In September, we proposed to MVW that, instead, we should assign our foreclosure rights to MVW, which would bring the foreclosure actions at its expense and would own the unit-weeks when the foreclosures were completed. MVW has now rejected that proposal but indicated that it was considering a proposal of its own and might suggest it to us at a future meeting.
Owner access to Board of Directors meetings
Board of Directors meetings are open to owners to observe, but only if they are present in person at the meeting. In March, in the interest of transparency, we moved that a recording of the March meeting be made available to all owners so that those not personally in attendance could hear what was discussed. This proposal was unanimously approved, but management reports that the quality of the recording of the meeting was too poor for it to be distributed. Since the June meeting was virtual, there were no quality issues, and we again proposed that a recording be made available. This recording is available for your listening purposes.
Larry Pelletier
[email protected]
Philip G. Schrag
[email protected]
Dear Fellow Member of the Virgin Grand Villas Condominium Owners Association:
As your owner-elected directors, we recently participated in a conference call meeting of the Board of Directors. This is the first of two fall reports to you; we’ll send another after the Board’s November meeting to settle on the 2022 budget.
Resort booming
After a year in which the Covid epidemic reduced use of the resort (and the governor of the Virgin Islands restricted hotel and resort use for a period), the Westin St. John is back in nearly full operation (beaches in the Virgin Islands are still closed after 4 PM). The average occupancy is more than 90% most days, with owners and their guests comprising about 70% of that total. The resort continues to take extraordinary measures to protect owners and guests from Covid. At the time of writing this report, it is still necessary to have a negative Covid test within five days before flying to the Virgin Islands. In addition, all staff associates have their temperature taken and are assessed for symptoms before they begin to work each day and are directed not to work if there are concerns. Any associate who tests positive must quarantine. Masks continue to be required for everyone in all indoor areas except individual units. Masks are available for free at several locations including the Mango Deli and the shuttle carts.
Maintenance fees and insurance premiums
Vistana recently sent you a copy of the budget that management has proposed. As its cover letter noted, the proposal has been reviewed, but not yet approved by the Board of Directors of the Association. While the 2022 budget has not yet been finalized, we can provide insight that a large portion of the increase is driven more by spikes in property insurance premiums, more than by any other factor. The premium rate will remain the same as in 2021, but the total insured value of Virgin Grand, determined by the insurance industry, has increased from $42 million to $65 million. As a result, the maintenance fee for each unit-week will include $441 for property insurance premiums (less for studios, more for larger-than-average units). The main reason for such a sharp increase is that the appraising company used by the insurance companies had been using mainland replacement costs for our property and is now using the cost of replacing buildings and contents in the Virgin Islands. A secondary reason is that Virgin Grand now must pay its share of the insurance premiums for the buildings in the common areas, such as the lobbies. Additionally, there is an excise tax imposed by the Virgin Islands on materials and goods brought to the island.
We will send a more detailed report on the 2022 maintenance fee, and the cause of each significant component of it, in November. We recognize that the significant increase in the maintenance fee will make continued ownership in the resort unattractive to some owners. We have therefore informed our fellow Board members that we plan to vote against this budget unless Marriott Vacation Worldwide institutes a reasonable repurchase program for owners who want to take advantage of it.
Restaurant
Management continues to review options for reopening Lemongrass restaurant, and it hopes finalize a plan to open the restaurant for daily breakfast and dinner early in 2022. Meanwhile, dinners will be served in Lemongrass approximately twice a week as part of special offerings served from the existing Snorkels outlet. Snorkels remains open for meals three times a day.
HVAC improvements
This summer and fall, General Manager Eugene Martin has overseen the work on the final phase of improving the HVAC systems in several of the villas, as recommended by outside engineers, to improve system effectiveness. Work on the hillside villas has been completed, and work on several pool villa units is expected to be completed by the end of October.
Foreclosure procedures
Nearly ten percent of owners are delinquent in their maintenance payments, requiring other owners to make up the difference to cover fixed costs. Covering this bad debt represents about five percent of other owners’ annual maintenance fees. Until now, foreclosure on the unit-weeks of the delinquent owners has been a costly and time-consuming process for our Association. However, the Virgin Islands legislature passed a law this summer providing for non-judicial foreclosure, which will enable us to foreclose on delinquent owners much more quickly and at a lower cost. Please pay your maintenance fees on time. Do not be one of the owners who burdens other owners and becomes subject to foreclosure.
A new wall in buildings 41 and 42?
Nearly all owners of units in buildings 41 and 42 (and one unit in building 43) desire a wall to be built upstairs to replace the sliding panels that separate what are supposed to be two bedrooms. Longtime owners will recall that about six or seven years ago, the previous developer stated that no wall could be constructed without the affirmative consent of every owner of a particular unit, and a survey showed that at least one such owner objected or didn’t respond to inquiries. The new developer is willing to allow the Association to construct the new walls if outside counsel determines that we could do so by vote of the Board or of the Association Membership. On behalf of the association, management is now obtaining an opinion from local outside counsel.
A personal note from Philip Schrag
This is my next-to-last report to owners. I have decided not to run for a fifth three-year term on the Board of Directors. Twelve years is enough, and it is time to turn over the responsibilities of this position to my wonderful co-elected-director David Futransky and to the next owner-elected board member, whom you will choose this winter.
As an owner of four unit-weeks in Virgin Grand, it is my hope that the owner who succeeds me on the board will be as vigorous a representative of owner interests as were the other volunteer owner-elected directors with whom I have served: Bob Werbel, Larry Pelletier, and David Futransky. Please consider running for election if you can be that ardent advocate for owners. Do not run under a mistaken impression that the position involves glamorous free travel to our favorite resort. To the contrary, most meetings of the Board are by conference call, and most of the hard work of being an elected Board member is done between meetings. Vistana will be sending you a description of the job which I wrote and the Board approved some years ago, but let me highlight what I think are the most important duties of elected directors:
- Studying with care the proposed budget prepared by the management company each September, and advocating for ways to minimize maintenance increases while preserving the quality of the resort
- Scrutinizing any proposals by management that may adversely affect the owners’ experience, such as the proposal, subsequently withdrawn after the elected board members objected, to allow use of the road through Virgin Grand by residents in land to be developed by Marriott Vacations Worldwide
- Writing these reports to owners at least quarterly, after each board meeting, to report on the conditions at the resort and actions taken by the Board. The management company checks drafts of our report for accuracy and may make suggestions for our consideration, but it does not censor them. (Twelve years ago, Bob Werbel and I made it clear to the management company that although for reasons of privacy management would not share the owner email list with us, we would not serve as directors unless the management company agreed to send our candid reports to the people who elected us).
- Serving as an ombudsman for owners who have questions or problems. As a representative of the owners, you can expect a substantial volume of e-mail from them, and at least one of the owner-elected directors answers every e-mail. Sometimes you will be able to answer the queries from your own knowledge, and sometimes you will have to refer a question to the General Manager or to another member of the of the Management Company staff, and then follow up if necessary.
I have very much enjoyed working for you and corresponding with many of you since 2010. I am proud of many of the changes and policies that my co-elected-directors and I have suggested over the years, including the hurricane contingency fund that saved us from a special assessment after Hurricane Irma, the freecycle shed and beach chair restocking fund, and the drinking fountains, shade sails and shaded benches at the hillside pools. I leave it to David and to my successor to continue to press so that our resort remains our wonderful home away from home.
David Futransky
[email protected]
Philip Schrag
[email protected]
*****************************************************************************************
July 2020
Dear Fellow Virgin Grand Villas Owner:
As your owner-elected representatives on the Board of Directors, we recently participated in a conference call meeting of the Board. The agenda for this meeting was fairly short, so this is a relatively short report.
State of resort operations following the COVID-19 shutdown
During a period this spring of rising numbers of COVID-19 cases nationally, including a few in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands prohibited new arrivals at hotels and timeshares during parts of April, May, and June. The Governor’s restrictions have partially ended, and the Westin St. John is again accepting guests, with 90% occupancy expected during the July 4 week.
The resort associates, led by General Manager Eugene Martin, are taking many precautions to prevent an outbreak of the virus at the resort. As of June 22, there have been no instances of virus at the resort, and the precautions in place include:
- limitation on the number of people who can ride each ferry, to maintain social distancing
- limitation on the number of tables and the number of people at each table, at Snorkels, which is now serving dine-in as well as take-out meals
- closing off for use every other machine in the fitness center to promote social distancing
- requirement that staff members wear masks in all public buildings and areas of the resort
- thorough and enhanced cleaning of every unit after each occupancy, reduced housekeeping during periods of occupancy, and more frequent cleaning of equipment and common areas such as exercise machines and restrooms
- closing of some of the grills to maintain social distancing of users
- reduced number of lounge chairs at the pool
- suspension of certain activities such as spa services and fitness classes
The operational situation at the resort may change from time-to-time in accordance with risk factors associated with the pandemic and directions from the USVI government.
To stay up-to-date on COVID-19 in the U.S. Virgin Islands, please visit: https://usviupdate.com/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19-updates/
To stay up to date on the operational status of the resort, please visit: https://hub.vacationclub.com/resort-updates/
Remediation project
Contractors have continued to work to remediate the buildings/units that experienced or were at risk of experiencing microbial damage after the new HVAC equipment was installed. Chilled water pipes are being insulated, attics are being insulated to prevent condensation on the pipes, and temperature and humidity sensors are being installed in the attics. Signs are being posted in all units to remind owners to leave all doors and windows closed and to leave the air conditioning system running at all times. It may be counterintuitive to use electrical energy on air conditioning rather than to allow outside air into the units, but this is essential to keep the humidity at low enough levels to prevent the growth of mold in the units. So once again we add our own request that you not leave patio doors open, as this turns off the air conditioner and lets tropical moisture into the rooms.
Land parcel up the hill from Virgin Grand
At the March Annual and Board meetings, it was noted that Westin St. John Hotel Company, Inc. (“WSJHC”) was seeking a buyer for a parcel of land above Virgin Grand on which four luxury homes could be built. An issue was raised about road access to those homes, because Virgin Grand has historically been opposed to increased traffic through the Virgin Grand property. WSJHC has informed us that the current land parcel does have easements rights to the road through Virgin Grand but that it is looking for options where access to that property would not be via the existing road.
Also in March, an owner pointed out that the map showing the property that WSJHC wanted to sell included a few square yards of the access road, at the hairpin turn, to buildings 33 and 34, and that a new owner of property that included those few square yards could cut off access to those buildings. The Management Company assured us that if those square yards were to be included in the property sold, an easement for access to our buildings would be retained.
Developer purchase of unit-weeks that owners no longer desire
Last September, Marriott Vacations Worldwide (“MVW”) officials informed us that MVW was considering a possible program to purchase some unit-weeks that owners no longer desire. However, the pandemic suspended sales of timeshare properties and of consideration of the plan. MVW hopes to present an update this fall.
Foreclosure process
At present, when an owner is delinquent in maintenance fee payments, the owner is locked out, the unit-week is liened, and the owner is subject to foreclosure litigation. The Association refers the matter to an attorney who handles the litigation. When the unit-week has been foreclosed upon, it becomes Association-owned inventory and we annually offer it to MVW. If MVW declines to purchase it in bulk, we then offer it to current owners at extremely low prices.
In September, we proposed to MVW that, instead, we should assign our foreclosure rights to MVW, which would bring the foreclosure actions at its expense and would own the unit-weeks when the foreclosures were completed. MVW has now rejected that proposal but indicated that it was considering a proposal of its own and might suggest it to us at a future meeting.
Owner access to Board of Directors meetings
Board of Directors meetings are open to owners to observe, but only if they are present in person at the meeting. In March, in the interest of transparency, we moved that a recording of the March meeting be made available to all owners so that those not personally in attendance could hear what was discussed. This proposal was unanimously approved, but management reports that the quality of the recording of the meeting was too poor for it to be distributed. Since the June meeting was virtual, there were no quality issues, and we again proposed that a recording be made available. This recording is available for your listening purposes.
Larry Pelletier
[email protected]
Philip G. Schrag
[email protected]
BAY VISTA
Please send HOA emails to [email protected] to post here.
CORAL VISTA
Please send HOA emails to [email protected] to post here.
SUNSET BAY
Please send HOA emails to [email protected] to post here.