Billion Dollar Cruise Ship To Be Built In Korea

It's a risky move but a couple of investors are betting that the world is ready for a new level ocean liner luxury. Recently Samsung Heavy Industries announced a commission to build $1.1 billion super cruiser in Korea called The Utopia. This is the first huge luxury passenger ship being built in Asia. The 1,000-foot, 105,000-ton ship will be completed in 2013 and will offer the Utopia Residences, 200 floating apartments that will range from 1,400 to 6,600 square feet. Residences on the ship will have a starting price of $3.6 million. There will also be a 204-room hotel on board, a fact that makes it different from a similar concept, The World of Residensea ship which is all owned units. The ship plans to travel the world checking out events like the Cannes Film Festival, Rio's Carnival, the Olympics and the Grand Prix auto race in Monaco.

Utopia Residences has opened a showroom on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and is also selling through Douglas Elliman in New York City. The Utopia venture is being financed by a majority of New Mexico investors and the project's lead investors are the Chant and Robb families. David Robb serves as Utopia's chairman while Chris Chant is its president. Frank Carlucci, the former U.S. Secretary of Defense and co-founder of The Carlyle Group, is also involved and the project is backed by Frontier Group, a private equity firm founded by Carlucci. According to an article in New Mexico Business Weekly, David Robb said that he expects that 60 percent of the sales will come from outside the United States.