US officials are eyeing a government-owned sports club as the site for a new embassy in an effort to beef up security, US and government officials said Monday.
US Ambassador Kent Wiedemann on Monday said Phnom Penh’s International Youth Club is a “strong contender” among several sites considered by embassy staff.
He added that the government’s ownership of the property is one of the site’s advantages. Negotiations are likely to be “more straightforward” with government than a private owner because the government’s property rights are less likely to be contested, he said.
City officials have offered to sell the 3-hectare property near Wat Phnom for $2.3 million, a deal agreed on by both the Ministry of Finance and the land’s current tenant, according to Deputy Chief of Municipal Cabinet Sok Lakhena.
That tenant, Canadia Bank director Pung Khiev, paid $1 million for a 70-year lease on the property in January and has since invested $500,000 for renovations, Sok Lakhena said. Government officials and Pung Khiev have not yet finalized how they would divide profits of the sale, he added.
The US State Department introduced stricter embassy security in 1998, after the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. However staff still worry about security at the current US embassy in Phnom Penh.
The embassy closed temporarily last December after threats of terrorist attacks. Also last year, a protest outside the embassy over the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade turned into a riot.
“We were so close to the street we had people climbing over the walls,” Wiedemann said. “We had rocks and debris coming in. It’s not a good situation.”
The Youth Club buildings would be razed and a new complex built to meet the new security standards. The project would take “a few years” Wiedemann said.
Youth Club director Chea Chheang Ly said he is not concerned about the club’s possible closure. With 50 employees but only 40 paying members, the club is losing money, he said.
Built in 1929 as a leisure club for French colonials, the ‘Cercle Sportif’ was once the center of Phnom Penh high society.
But it was to acquire a more ghoulish reputation in 1975, when invading Khmer Rouge used its swimming pool as a mass grave for high-ranking members of the Lon Nol government.
However that aspect of the club’s history won’t influence the embassy’s decision.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” Wiedemann said.
