By Katalina Siasau

Luxury villas, under construction at the Royal estate Polata’ane, on the Nuku'alofa waterfront, are being built under a partnership project between the Tonga Development Bank, the land owner, and a mystery investor. The Bank says they will be opened on 1 July this year.

On 10 February,  the Tonga Development Bank held a retreat conference and invited media to attend a presention about the bank's big development partnership projects, including the project on Polata'ane. However, information presented about the project was sketchy. When answering follow-up questions by Matangi Tonga, the TDB CEO ‘Emeline Tuita and Marketing Consultant Lolinda Maue this week, said she could not give any further insight as the project was the confidential information of the bank.

The TDB on their official Facebook page on 25 January, announced the building of a new “VVIP complex”; a conference centre, restaurant and 23 luxury villas with 58 rooms. Emeline said this was one of the bank's partnership projects, to support tourism in Tonga and economic development.

Aside from that, TDB stated that the VVIP villa complex would be completed and ready to open on 1 July 2024, before the King's birthday on 4 July, among other things.

Emeline said it was, "the first major construction in Tonga after the 2022 HTHH eruption and tsunami, and will be a huge contribution to the Tourism industry.” She also said this would be the first luxury accommodation in Tonga, and would accommodate “very, very important people (VVIP), and high-level officials who will visit the Kingdom”. (Tonga is hosting a Pacific Leaders meeting later this year.)

Mystery investor

Emeline said the King is lending his Polata’ane Estate for the development of this project, a partnership between the bank, the King, and an unidentified investor.

The pre-construction process started in November 2023 and she said that Lightsteel Limited from New Zealand, a company that specialises in innovative and energy-efficient building products, could build one luxury villa within 21 days, and they had already build a replica of the villa in that time.

The century old house standing on the Polata'ane grounds, (the former British High Commissioner's residence) will be renovated for a Conference centre, while the old trees on the site that survived the tsunami in January 2022 will be removed to make room for the construction.