Imperial Pacific, the company behind Saipan’s Imperial Palace integrated resort (IR), wants to build 2,000 new hotel rooms. This is part of the reason that the developer doesn’t seem to be able to complete construction. Now, regulators are calling into question the amount of hotel rooms, indicating that Saipan would have to see over twice the amount of tourists for the hotel to reach full occupancy.

The Commonwealth Casino Commission (CCC), the gaming regulator for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), doesn’t think that the construction is necessary. The commission’s executive director, Edward Deleon Guerrero, told a House Committee on Gaming this past week that it should reconsider the proposal. He added that CNMI would have to receive two million tourist arrivals annually in order to service all 2,000 rooms. Last year, there were only 659,741.

Guerrero asserted, “I don’t think the CNMI could accommodate 2 million visitors a year. And I don’t think we have the capability to construct 2,000 rooms.”

The timing of his comments is a little odd. Only two weeks ago, the CCC approved a request by Imperial Pacific to extend its construction deadline until 2021. That is an extension of two and a half years past the most recent extension, which was a year and a half from the original deadline.