'Everything put together, sooner or later falls apart'

So droned Paul Simon; and around here it is sooner rather than later.

Take the magnificent upgrade to Beach Road a year or so ago. It was the latest in a long line of Beach Road improvement projects; each completely negating the need for the ones that went before. The latest enterprise was budgeted at a declared 155 million baht, disrupted traffic for a year, and resulted in a wider road (which could have been achieved with parking management), offset by a narrower footpath with embedded palm trees. The result looked reasonably tidy, if lacking in any charm, for a while. But it soon became clear that the quality of the construction was low quality, and absolutely no allowance had been made for drainage to cope with the large quantity of water that arrives on Beach Road after every storm. Flooding was as bad as ever and the deluges started to wash away all the hard work. The latest storm this week demonstrated yet again the robustness of the new path:

Never mind, there is already a 468 million baht project underway to add a zillion tonnes of sand to Pattaya beach to counter beach erosion (there is absolutely no chance the tides will wash this away in a year or so). Once the beach has been rebuilt, no doubt there will be another massive project to replace the currently collapsing walkway. And so the cycle of crap continues.

Meantime, further south, there is much attention on the magnificent Waterfront project where construction is currently halted because certain people feel it will be an eyesore on the skyline.

The Waterfront project has been underway for more than six years, and the original developer didn’t get very far with it. Hardly surprising in my view given the location. Situated on the arse end of Walking Street, in an area awash with tourist buses during the day and home to a particularly pungent boat park; it was hard to relate to the new developer’s claim that “The building is perfectly designed to fit its beautiful location”.

Still, the new developer did at least start to build it, and a year ago they were making good progress:

Unfortunately the shitty boat park remained in front of the condo, which was a surprise, because a new marina that would house all the boats, plus visiting craft from Monaco, was due to be completed by the end of 2013. A breathless article in the Pattaya Mail gave the exciting news, with particular emphasis on how this would benefit the Waterfront. The boss of the project chimed in and pointed out that: “As with any marina in the world, only the very best properties are normally in these locations, and we truly believe that Waterfront is in the world class category.”

In early 2014 there was indeed the makings of a marina:

But fast forward to today and construction appears no further forward and what has been built is already starting to decay:

There is the occasional moored boat; but the majority continue to block the pathways and spew oil and garbage over the tarmac.

And it’s a shame. Take away the shitty boats, and that area of Pattaya could be made into an attractive water-front esplanade with bars, restaurants and a pleasant walkway.

Instead, the lighthouse and surroundings are falling to pieces.

The marina is a dump.

And the Waterfront stands as an empty shell, “perfectly designed to fit its beautiful location”.

Makes Beach Road look like a perfect promenade.

Comments 🔗

2015-04-09 | rjmorgans says

I’ve forwarded the article to the Thai authorities. You will soon be back home in lovely Blighty where we can do marinas!

2015-04-09 | ChristianPFC says

I noticed that the northern end of Beach Road started to fall apart before the southern end was finished. There are hordes of Chinese tourists on Bali Hai pier. If they added a cantilever on The Waterfront, it would look like a giraffe (I like the idea of a building looking like a giraffe, in Bangkok we have Elephant Building and Robot Building).

2015-04-09 | genuinej says

Sometimes I think you’re a little hard on Pattaya’s esteemed developers and the authorities with whom they work so tirelessly!

2015-04-09 | Chang Noi says

I did forget his name but there is/was a Thai guy (a few years ago) that was fighting against the corruption with tax-money and even within the official books Pattaya Economic Zone is the biggest black-hole of tax-money in Thailand. So Pattaya will have it’s own eye-score of unfinished high-rise building (like in Khon Khon already for 20 years).

2015-04-10 | Barry says

Spike, you have no imagination and clearly don’t understand Thainess. They deliberately make a cock-up of every construction job they do so that they have to come back round and do it all again. This keeps hundreds of people in work and boosts the local economy, both in supplying materials and providing food and drink for the workers.

2015-04-10 | Spike says

Thank you for the character assassination, and the casual racism. Go share it on Thai Visa, it is appreciated there. However there are plenty of examples of solid construction in Thailand and I personally worked with many excellent Thai engineers for many years who were involved in petroleum extraction related projects, all of which are still working properly, safely and to specification. So your assertion that “they” deliberately make a cock-up of every construction job is not supported by my experience.

2015-04-10 | Barry says

T’was a joke, my friend. There are some great examples of Thai workmanship, such as the place in pastel colours just outside Pattaya on Sukhumvit, for example, and any of the five star hotels around. There is also absolute crap, as you are wont to point out at irregular intervals. One such example I’ve experienced is a major road near me that had to be totally resurfaced after three months as it was so full of potholes as to be unusable. As with everything in Thailand, you really never know how anything going to end up. There is a reason for such disparate results, of course, usually involving brown paper bags, and the amount of pride or otherwise taken in one’s work.