The dispute over the ownership of a strip of land next to St. Georges Hotel flared up again after Solidere resumed work on Beirut’s marina.
The development company restarted work on a swimming pool and erected a wall sealing off an entrance to the hotel, according to the hotel’s owner Fadi Khoury.
Speaking at a news conference Friday at St. Georges Hotel, Khoury said that the area currently being developed as a private marina is actually “public domain.”
Known previously as Le Bain Francais, the area was a beach resort adjacent to St. Georges  Hotel which was nationalized  after the war.
“Since it is public property, Solidere doesn’t have the right to exploit it this way,” Khoury told reporters.
Although contacted several times by The Daily Star, those responsible for the marina project declined to comment on Khoury’s accusations.
Khoury said the structure was “designed to serve as a breakwater, but they’ve made it so wide and so high that it would not be surprising if they turned it into a tourist project.”
The breakwater, which according to Khoury covers 45,000 square meters and is over eight meters high, has obstructed the view of the first three floors of the hotel.
Referring to the concrete wall now blocking one of the hotel’s access doors, Khoury said, “it’s just a new form of harassment to make me sell out or give up the fight for this hotel, but I won’t give up.”
Khoury compared his case to that of Ouzai and Kahaleh residents who recently staged protests against development projects initiated by Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Solidere’s founder and biggest shareholder.
Khoury said: “I wish I had a family or people backing me like those” demonstrators, saying he had a weak position being in a struggle against a company that had the full backing of the government.
“I am suffering a lot from the fact that the prime minister is one with Solidere. I keep encountering hurdles in my way,” he asserted.
Khoury said he started reconstruction work on the hotel nine years ago, and has invested $35 million.
Khoury added that there was irony in the destruction wrought by successive Hariri governments on a hotel that had survived the civil war.
“St. Georges, as the legend says, was a hero here because he killed the dragon. Now he’s a martyr,” said Khoury.

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