200 villas at Sipadan resort
TAWAU: Sabah Green Development Sdn Bhd aims to increase tourist influx to Sabah's east coast, especially Tawau and Sandakan, by building 200 units of villas at Sipadan Mangrove Resort, Sungai Burong, Kalumpang.
Since the signing of a MoU between Sabah Green Development and Great Living Fortune on March 26, 2018 in Sandakan to build the 200 villas at Sipadan Mangrove Resort, a milestone has been reached where the groundbreaking ceremony was held yesterday to build 50 wellness villas that can host up to 220 guests.
The project is the first phase as part of Sabah East Coast Tourism Belt initiative to achieve more high standard accommodation for tourists.
The company also plans to build other villas of different designs in Sandakan and Silam, Lahad Datu.
Sabah Green Development CEO John Nip said most of the villa units are expected to be sold to China tourists and the sale will start around the beginning of May as the 50 villas are scheduled for completion by July.
To achieve this, he said, the company signed a MoU with Great Living Fortune, a villa builder and marketing agent from China as the company targets to sell most of its unit to China.
He said that with the China builder's expertise, a villa structure could be assembled within 7-10 days and the company hopes to build a showroom and announce sales by mid May this year.
Though the main target is China buyers, the units are also for interested local buyers as investment, where buyers are entitled to one month stay per year while the rest of the months will be for lease with unit owners getting 70 percent of the profits.
With the villas in place as accommodation, the company aims to make Sipadan Mangrove Resort as an alternative gateway to Semporna's Mabul Island, Mataking Island and Tun Sakaran Marine Park.
The resort, which is selfsufficient using renewable energy from solar power, biomass and wind turbines, will see the highly innovative and highly sustainable development project having a low impact on the environment with villas built along the canal and along the land.