Announcements

Dear Antigua Owners:

Thanks to all the owners who attended our kick off meeting for the remodel of our Village on Saturday. As the director, I must tell you we have a very impressive group of owners. It really is a pleasure to work with such a group of positive, committed and selfless people. Antigua has to be the best Village in the Cays. 

For those who couldn’t make it, Jon Wayne Construction (JWC) informed everybody of their scope of work and schedule. Suffice it to say, each owner will receive plenty of notice prior to work beginning at your units.  Work is scheduled to commence around May 8^th.

Once the work commences on the first 12 units, we will learn a lot about any unforeseen conditions and concerns. Resolving any of these matters will then allow us to more accurately schedule future units. It is my intent as well as JWC’s to accelerate this project. Either way it goes, it’s going to be exciting to finally see something being done for our Village.

While we all look forward to this projects completion, we still face numerous other issues I wanted to update you on.

STAIRS. Prior to the remodel, we have initiated a contract to have the rotten wood, large gaps, and loose rails repair as part of our maintenance. This will ensure these items are ready for prep and painting as part of the remodel. You may see replaced wood and rails in primer until the remodel project gets to your quad.

WATERSIDE DECKS. We will be inspecting and hopefully resealing all of the rear upstairs decks as this project moves forward. Our intent is to be sure we have “sealed” or resurfaced all of our 54 decks prior to next year’s rain so as to not repeat the costly problems of 2016.

RESERVE STUDY. The new reserve study has been completed and will be mailed to all owners. While its shows us currently funded at only a 9% level, and increasing to 25% by 2025, it does I believe, reflect a far more realistic and accurate number of the conditions in Antigua. Secondly, it demonstrates we are not in as bad a shape as many thought, with just a little help.

DOCKS. We are scheduled to replace the dock plumbing on the east and north side in the next 6 months by the reserve study. We have obtained bids for this work; however I have put a temporary hold on this until we understand how the remodel is going. Assuming that proceeds with just minor glitches, we will complete that work this year. We were finally able to install the new dock at the quad of 37/39, after 18 months of waiting for permits.

TREE TRIMMING. You may have noticed that our palms have already got hundreds of seed pods coming out. I am getting prices to just remove those pods at some point in the very near future so we don’t live with that mess again this year. We may choose for budget reason to just remove the ones along the roadway as they are far easier to reach with equipment.

LIGHTING. As part of the remodel we will be cleaning and repainting the landscape lights. We will also be converting the florescencent bulbs to LEDs to improve the quality of light as well as save electricity.

PEST CONTROL. I have received several very complimentary comments about the new pest control service. They seem to have an answer for getting rid of the little ants in people’s units. You can call them directly if you want your interior treated, which I believe costs around $35.00 to the unit owner.

PLUMBING. This still remains one of our biggest challenges to solve. By solve I mean pay for. While our new reserve study tackles this issue in the year 2026, I believe it is in our best interest to address this issue much sooner, as the secondary cost (replacing carpets, flooring, cleaning, furniture, hotel bills, etc.) of these failures can exceed the actual repair cost. Our current thinking is to send a camera down every units drain pipes. This will tell us those which have signs of failure so we can then put together a cost to treat those immediately and thus save the other cost.

SAND BERM REPLINISHMENT. We are still waiting on a permit to replenish the sand Berms along the seawalls behind our units. I won’t bore you with the hoops our staff has to jump through to try and get this approved by seven different agencies’ including the Army Corps of Engineers, but we’re down to sourcing the “approved type of sand”. Once received, it is my intention to be sure we get enough material placed so that we don’t need to do it again for quite some time.

BOAT DOCKING. As stated above, the City of Coronado wants all the boats to be docked bow in. This is an effort to reduce losing the berg sand to prop wash from boats backing in. They are currently just asking, but after the sand work is complete, you can expect that “asking” to change.

FLAT ROOFS. A portion of our remodel is to complete a comprehensive review and report of what needs to be addressed on the flat roofs above the upper units. Many of these have been done but others still need work. Once completed, I will share those results with everyone. We have increased the preventive maintenance on these surfaces and plan to be ready for next winter.

LANDSCAPE MANAGEMENT CONTRACTING. As some of you might be aware, the CCHOA has received bids for contracting the landscape maintenance of the Cays. We have met with six of the top contenders. All are very qualified and work in the Homeowner Association market. One currently maintains the Del Coronado as well as the Loews. Each has 250 to 22,000 employees, which is to say, they know this business. As you can imagine, it is a complicated bid to review against our staff. Depending on how these cost and quality improvements develop, I expect a decision by May or June on this issue.

ASSESSMENT. Very soon you will be receiving the budget, reserve study and dues increase for 2017/18. Our dues will be increasing 20%. As we will be borrowing approximately $500,000.00 from the homeowner’s association to complete this remodel, we will need to repay those funds with this increase. You will see a line item for debt service on the budget for this payment.

We have done a lot of destructive testing in preparation for this remodel, and feel confident about what we may face in terms of extra expenses; however nobody knows until we start. I’ll personally be on site with Michael our manager as well as Dan Bick from our maintenance department to see how this project unfolds. Until then I can’t estimate the final cost. My hopes are for very little extra expense and we save the contingency funds for reserves.

Once we have a feel for how the remodel is progressing, I will quickly move on to the other pressing concerns. (Plumbing, flat roofs, decks and landings) At such a time that I know the cost to address these items, coupled with the knowledge of how we are doing with the remodel, I can inform every Antigua owner of what if anything we may need to fund in the future.

I prefer to work with facts and not feelings, however, sometimes that takes a little longer to determine than just guessing.

Dennis Thompson