At the tip of the hotel district lies the partially restored ruin of what was once considered one of the most glamorous hotels in the world.
Back in the days when Beirut was the “Pearl of the Mediterranean,” the city where the party (apparently) never stopped, the St. Georges Hotel was Ground Zero of Lebanon’s Golden Age.
Built in the 1930s and run by French proprietors until 1958, it was the stylish backdrop against which film stars, singers, businessmen, millionaires, dissidents, spies, writers, royalty (deposed or otherwise) and practically the entire foreign press corps of the Middle East created the image of Beirut as the swinging hostess with the mostest.
Traitorous British intelligence official Kim Philby came her to escape after being found out as a KGB spy. Liz (Taylor) and Richard (Burton) had a permanent suite. Farid al-Atrash and Omar Sharif frequently visited. Less exalted but equally well-known visitors also passed through its doors. Timothy Leary, leading light of the 1960’s hallucino-generation, turned up dazed and confused in 1970, accompanied by a contingent of pigmentally challenged Black Panther-wannabes, on a “study tour” of Middle Eastern revolutionary movements.
The hotel occupied a special place in the hearts of those who knew it, finding its way into songs, films and even the odd book or two. Palestinian writer Souheil Natour, who arrived here in 1948, remembers the St. Georges as the place people first went to see women in bikinis. Bill Plante, longtime CBS newsman, still remembers Mansour Braidi, the legendary concierge who introduced him to  Chateau Musar on the hotel terrace.
Across the road, the Phoenicia Hotel, another Golden Age icon, once again hosts glittering events, regularly attracting visitors almost as heavily decorated as its interior.
Under Solidere’s ministrations, the city center has returned to a semblance of life, both by day and by night. The enormous garbage dump that was once Normandy Bay is beginning to shape up into what might one day become the eastern Mediterranean’s most expensive slice of real estate.
But seven years after work was begun to rehabilitate the St. Georges, the hotel is still shrouded in scaffolding and green netting, a dismal shadow of the days when it was known as the “center of the Middle East.”
The St. Georges story is a Byzantine epic of claim and counter-claim, decrees, decisions and dotted lines all underscored by a clash of wills and egos that is part David and Goliath (with both sides claiming victim status) and part Um Kulthoum versus Asmahan.
Like many regional conflicts, this one boils down to water rights. But this duel is over a triangular patch of seawater in front of the hotel, a mere 6000 square meters that is referred to in official documents as “Sector Five.”
According to the Societe des Grands Hotels du Levant (SGHL), the company that owns the St. Georges, Sector Five is theirs to use as a marina both by historical and legal precedent.
According to Solidere, which has been given the land on either side of the St. Georges, Sector Five is public property, or more properly “maritime public domain,” and as such neither party enjoys “rights” of any kind over the sea.
Predictably, the truth is a mixture of both arguments. Sector Five, like all public maritime domain, is public property, held in trust by the Ministry of Transportation on behalf of the people of Lebanon. Its use is regulated by laws that date back to 1925.
The domain cannot be used for private purposes unless the government authorizes such use through a decree of law, a document that must be signed by the president and the prime minister for it to be legally binding. Unlike regular government property, maritime public domain cannot be bought or sold.
Under Act 17 of Law 144S passed in 1925, people who own property adjoining the domain are entitled to apply for a license to use the beach and sea for private purposes. The license, which is renewable on a yearly basis, can be revoked at any time by the president. It cannot be transferred to a third party
As the owner of the land adjoining Sector Five, the St. Georges appears to have a solid claim to this patch of sea. But Solidere insists that the St. Georges no longer has any claim over Sector Five, saying that all previous “understandings” were canceled by the Cabinet in 1995.
Additionally, it says the SGHL forfeited its rights when it agreed to accept 11,000 square meters of reclaimed land in what used to be Minet al-Hosn. Solidere maintains that the 1997 contract the SGHL signed with the CDR, specifically paragraph 18, states as much.
Jean Alghawi, the lawyer representing SGHL, doesn’t agree.
“When we signed the contract, in no way and nowhere did it mention we would relinquish our rights over the water,” he says. “What we agreed to relinquish at the time were rights to present or future court actions against the CDR.”
Neither does Fadi Khoury, chairman of SGHL, whose family has owned the St. Georges since 1958. “The St. Georges is the hotel plus the beach,” he says. “We never agreed to give up Sector Five and we challenge Solidere to produce one document that says this.”
Trying to secure that document, or even official Solidere or CDR comment on the case, is frustrating. The sole representative of Solidere who agreed to discuss the issue with The Daily Star, who referred to himself as a company lawyer, refused to identify himself or to allow his comments to be quoted.
The CDR is similarly unforthcoming on the issue. Repeated attempts to get its perspective on the affair were countered with a polite but firm “we have no comment at this time.”
In the end, it was Khoury who gave The Daily Star a copy of the contract. Paragraph 18 makes no mention of Sector Five.
This has not stopped Solidere from attacking the St. Georges in their reports. The introduction to an article in the July-September 2000 issue refers to “important issues that remain outstanding with the state, thus hindering the reconstruction and development of Beirut city center.”
It goes on to talk of “two companies” which have “trespassed” on the marina since 1999 and whose “authorizations to occupy areas of the maritime public domain” were “rescinded” in 1995 by the Cabinet when it allocated to them 11,000 square meters of reclaimed land. The picture on the following page shows a photo of the western marina, showing the boats in the St. Georges marina under a caption which reads “Beirut marina: still hampered.”
Alghawi says this is deliberately misleading. “The (St. Georges) marina is not even part of Solidere,” he says. “Decision 83 taken in November 1995 does talk about merging Sector Five with the western marina but they cannot do this legally. We own the land adjacent to the sea.”
He points out that legally, a Cabinet decision is not a binding document until it becomes a decree ­ a document that must carry the signature of the president, as well as the prime minister. There is much argument over this particular point of law. A provision in the Taif Accord lends legal legitimacy to decisions taken by the Cabinet but this provision is fiercely contested and has repeatedly been attacked for being unconstitutional.
The month following decision 83, the government appeared to overturn the decision when it approved decree 7760. “Decree 7660 of Dec 15, 1995 clearly states that Sector Five is public maritime domain,” Alghawi continues.
“Therefore under the laws governing the public maritime domain and under the plan proposed by Decree 7660, the marina is outside of the (Solidere) limits.”
Those limits are Khoury’s crown of thorns. The original plan drawn up in 1995 and the one according to which the Solidere project was approved by the government, shows quite clearly that the St. Georges marina, as it was at the time, falls outside the scope of Solidere. Later maps tell a different story, changing radically once the land reclamation projects of Minet al-Hosn and Normandy Bay had taken shape.
By 1999, some Solidere maps show the St. Georges owning more waterfront property but indicate that Sector Five now belongs to the western marina.
Nevertheless, a report prepared by the Ministry of Transportation, published in February of last year, clear states that this is not the case. The report, signed by Minister Najib Mikati, draws a distinction between the western marina under Solidere control and Sector Five, which it confirms does not fall within Solidere’s boundaries. The report further states that due to the complicated nature of the case, the simplest and fairest resolution would be to use the laws governing the maritime public domain.
“Solidere wants to expand beyond its boundaries, beyond what the law has given it,” says Khoury, “and not only to expand on the land, but now on the sea too.”
His complaints don’t stop at Sector Five.
As well as the delays he says the SGHL has faced in getting permits and other official documentation over the years ­ including an 18-month delay in securing official CDR approval of the works completed on time under contractual obligation ­ he points to the 8-meter-high breakwater that looms over the marina, blocking the hotel’s view of the sea and what he calls the “illegal” alterations to Sector Three, the roughly triangular parcel of reclaimed land that lies between the St. Georges and the Phoenicia.
Under the terms of the contract signed between the SGHL and the CDR, Sector Three was designated as a parking lot operated by the SGHL to serve both the St. Georges and the Phoenicia. The plot originally extended to the underpass that takes traffic from the hotel district to the downtown proper.
Now, an access road permitting passage to the Phoenicia runs across the plot, cutting it in two. For it’s part, Solidere maintains that the sea wall is necessary to protect the marina from freak waves of up to 15 meters which apparently strike the city once every 100-150 years and that the original 1995 masterplan, the basis on which the Solidere project was approved, was intended to be a working document and never cast in stone.
Khoury categorizes the entire affair as an “extremely bad experience” both for himself and for other investors and says it is this kind of behavior that keeps Lebanese investment locked up in foreign banks.
Last week, the showdown entered its final stage.
On orders from the Ministry of Transport, originally drafted six months ago but only just released, police descended on the St. Georges marina and slapped notices of eviction on all the boats. Owners were informed that they had a week in which to find other mooring spaces, or their boats would be impounded.
As the boats began to move elsewhere, Fadi Khoury, the chairman of SGHL and the man who has fought to save his hotel’s connection to the sea, announced that he had finally lost the battle.
What remains to be seen is who will finally win the war.
If Solidere is correct, the delays to the reconstruction of the St. Georges are easy to understand. In its eyes, the St. Georges is breaking the law and is standing in the way of its own projects, costing the company valuable time and money.
But if the SGHL is correct, Solidere’s actions are far less easy to understand. Why would the country’s largest real estate developer be prepared to go to war just to get its hands on a small patch of sea?
Khoury points to what is happening in Normandy Bay as his answer. The sea between the defensive sea-wall caissons and the reclaimed land, sea that is marked on the BCD Masterplan as a “lagoon,” is being reclaimed. Khoury believes this is the fate ultimately awaiting St. Georges Bay.
The Hoss government stopped the reclamation work in 1997, saying it exceeded Solidere’s remit. But following last year’s elections, backfilling resumed, although Solidere has now said that the land will become public property.
If Khoury is mistaken, the easiest way to silence his complaints would be to provide evidence that they are unfounded. Unlike Khoury, who is more than happy to provide stacks of documentation to bolster SGHL’s case, the absence of similar proof from the CDR or Solidere and their unwillingness to go on the record, doesn’t look good.
A charitable reading of this silence is that neither the CDR nor Solidere wish to further fan the flames of this acrimonious affair, secure in the knowledge that they are in the right. A less charitable reading is that Solidere and the CDR have overstepped their bounds, as the Hoss government suggested. In this case, by limiting their responses, they may be hoping that the issue will simply wither and die.
But as last week’s event and the flurry of press coverage it garnered suggest, this is not likely to happen in the conceivable future. Even before the St. Georges marina was closed down, Khoury was threatening to turn the hotel over to a board of trustees so that it remains a permanent, untouchable war-torn thorn in the glamorous flanks of the hotel district.
With a few tactically placed trees and some landscaping, the visual impact this might have on what is once again fast becoming the stomping ground of the “Cocktail Class” can be limited but the demise of another Beirut landmark doesn’t bode well for a city already stripped of much of what once made it glitter.