Each proposal was for a bigger and better resort at Cable Beach.
One proposal purportedly would rival Atlantis if not Las Vegas! Another had the familiar trappings of old PLP investment schemes ﾗ the involvement of a PLP operative completely unfamiliar with the tourism business.
The rush for Cable Beach is cause for much concern. The last time a PLP government was desperate for hotel investment in Cable Beach, the Bahamian people, through the Hotel Corporation, constructed, sold and then re-purchased the Cable Beach Hotel, and made financially calamitous arrangements for its management.
Their decisions resulted in a loss to Bahamians of hundreds of millions of dollars. Similar results came about from terms agreed for the construction of the Wyndham Nassau Resort and Crystal Palace Hotel.
This resort property, built at a time that the PLP was ﾗ and still are not ﾗ environmentally sensitive. The northernmost tower sits on what use to be the beach, a good beach. The environmental damage done as a result of the construction of that hotel on the beach is irreparable, unless the offending tower is destroyed.
The casino built with Bahamian tax payers money, whether operated by its original developers or by its subsequent owner, has never paid its taxes and fees either to the Treasury or to the Hotel Corporation on a timely basis. And in some cases, not at all.
Similarly, the new hotels did not pay Government hotel room taxes.
Let us therefore beware, lest the next PLP design for Cable Beach brings similar, or worse, consequences for Cable Beach.
Preserving open green spaces
Casual reference by the Government to the expanse of “unused” Government-owned Cable Beach land south of West Bay Street must also be closely monitored. Every assurance must be given that expansion of hotel and hotel amenities in Cable Beach will take fully into account the need to preserve open green spaces and to ensure an acceptable construction density.
The Free National Movement notes that at a time when the PLP Government repeatedly pronounces on its intentions to transform the Cable Beach area into a five-star tourism destination to rival Atlantis, its Town Planning Committee approved the construction of a US style wooden home structure along West Bay Street, in the residential subdivision of Westward Villas, six lots west of the Prime Minister’s personal residence.
We also note that the PLP Government permitted a hotel property to enclose its staff parking lot along West Bay Street with unadorned chain link fencing, and countenances the storage of a supplies trailer thereon.
Sandwich boards on a five-star strip
That the PLP permits the display of sandwich boards along the Cable Beach median advertising a weekly Farmer’s Market (a truck selling farm produce in a vacant lot behind the post office), can’t be anything other than inconsistent with their expressed intention/desire for the Cable Beach strip.
None of these things in Cable Beach spell “five-star”. They all detract from the considerable effort taken by the Cable Beach Hotel Association and the Government to enhance, particularly the scenic throughway leading from Nassau International Airport into downtown Nassau and thereafter to Paradise Island.
Time shares to replace hotel rooms?
The FNM is also concerned that at this time when efforts ought to be trained on the expansion of full-service hotel rooms in our hotel inventory ﾗ that is rooms which create the most jobs for the economy ﾗ the PLP have reportedly attracted investors who have a disproportionate interest in the expansion of all-inclusive, time shares and condominium facilities in Cable Beach and on Paradise Island.
It is a long established fact that conventional hotels employ more people than do condominiums or time shares. This is especially important to note particularly if new PLP-sponsored investments will produce time-share and condominiums to replace existing hotel rooms.
We caution the PLP to inform the Bahamian people in full detail of its plans for Cable Beach: the cost to the government, in terms of concessions, land transfers and new infrastructural development.
The land on which the Nassau Beach Hotel, the Wyndham Nassau Resort and Crystal Palace and the Cable Beach Hotels now sit are all owned by the Government and leased to the hotel developers. Is it proposed to now sell these publicly-owned lands to private developers?
Another matter of concern to the FNM involves the reported agreement for the sale of the Sheraton Grand Hotel on Paradise Island to one of the world’s largest operators of “all-inclusive” hotels.
While all-inclusive hotels are an important part of the tourism market, a fact recognised by the FNM Government when it enacted a new Time Share Act providing incentives and investment concessions to vacation clubs and time share developers, we must never lose sight of the fact that they do not have as great a spin-off effect on the economy, and are not preferable replacements for conventional hotel rooms.
A principle to be followed in this regard is simple: “a little of a good thing is sufficient”. The FNM cautions that the expansion in all-inclusive facilities must be carefully monitored.
The straw market disaster
The PLP, when it came to office in 2002, announced the halt to the already advanced preparations of the old Customs Warehouse on Prince George Dock, to relocate straw and craft vendors displaced by the straw market fire.
The facilities, developed following consultation with the vendors, were to include adequate vendors stalls for ALL displaced vendors inclusive of vendors who had previously occupied the second floor of the market and those who occupied space along the Wharf. The new market would have also housed a prayer chapel, a day-care facility for children of vendors, a cafeteria, adequate rest room facilities.
All straw vendors would have been housed in ground-floor accommodations ﾖ a big improvement over what was obtained at the burnt-out straw market when some straw vendors were housed on the second floor resulting in constant friction and complaints. For the first time ever, facilities for crafts persons not housed in the Craft Centre on the Wharf would have been provided on a new mezzanine.
The PLP claimed that they had to abandon the plan for the new market on the Prince George Wharf due to security concerns expressed by the US Government and cruise ship lines. Yet, all security concerns raised by these parties prior to May, 2002 had been discussed and acceptable solutions agreed.
And, let’s not forget, the PLP told the Bahamian people that it would not permit external forces to determine its policies in Government!
More than $2 million has been spent in the preparation of this building for Straw and Craft vendors. And work continued on the building for more than two months after the PLP Government announced work would stop. Simply stated, they neglected to advise the contractor, and indeed their own Ministry of Works, of their decision. Had this been done, a lot of money could have been saved.
The PLP then promised to construct a new straw market at its original Bay Street site on an accelerated schedule. The architectural design contract suffered from unbelievable incompetence. This delay was followed by more delays in the completion of the working drawings.
Now we are told that the original setting for the market may be used as foundation for the new market. And that the project may soon go to bid. To date, more than three construction start-up dates have passed. In the meantime, straw vendors’ frustration at their continued location under an emergency tent two and a half years after the fire, have begun to lose faith in their PLPs promise of help and hope.
At the same time, the PLP Government announced that the premises would be converted into offices for the Ministry of Trade and Industry and/or Tourism. Of course, they did not bother to inform themselves of how costly it would be to convert a warehouse into office accommodation for ministries. We haven’t heard any more about this scatterbrained idea in more than 18 months.
Since this time, the Government bought the Lloyds Bank Building on George Street to house the Ministry of Tourism. More about this at another time.
Unquestionably, on the FNM’s watch, vendors would have been in their new accommodations by Christmas 2002 ﾖ 15 months ago. Under the PLP, construction of a new market ain’t likely to start before the third quarter of this year. When we say start, that’s what we mean, start, not more promises. In the meantime, straw vendors suffer. They need both help and hope. Under the PLP, they are getting neither.
How ineffective! How wasteful! How incompetent is this “do nothing” Government!
By The Free National Movement
