The Baha Mar Development Company has been unable to meet a target date of August 30 to finalize an agreement with hotel partners for its billion-dollar Cable Beach development.
Baha Mar officials say they are still working to find hotel and casino partners for the Cable Beach Resorts they recently acquired as part of their billion-dollar development plans.
But an official at the company said recently that Baha Mar is making “great progress” in its efforts and will make an announcement by the end of September.
The official, however, declined to name who Baha Mar is negotiating with, saying only that they are all U.S.-based multinational companies.
During the heads of agreement signing back in April, Prime Minister Perry Christie announced that the company “is to use its best effort to enter into final agreements with its resort partner by August 30, 2005, and its casino partner by December 31, 2005.”
The Baha Mar official said the group intends to also announce a casino partner ahead of schedule.
Robert Sands, vice president of administration and external affairs, who also spoke with The Bahama Journal, said that Baha Mar is close to finalizing agreements with two partners, one for the resort, the other for the casino.
Mr. Sands said the search is “at a very advanced stage” and Baha Mar hopes to make an announcement of a selection in the “not too distant future”.
“We’ve always said that we will have different price points on the resort side,” Mr. Sands said. “So whichever hotel partner we select we may have three different brands within that partnership.”
Mr. Sands said the partner will play a key role in helping Baha Mar advance its plans.
“We believe that the synergy between ourselves and a world recognized and proven industry partner, both in gaming and in hospitality, would be pivotal in helping us achieve our goals as a world class resort on Cable Beach,” he said.
Mr. Sands added that Baha Mar is making significant progress in putting its plans into motion having last week announced the architect firm hired to design the retail and marina village.
“We’ve been meeting with government officials in terms of the road change,” he added, “and that is advancing. We’ve done a lot of work that we committed to in the interim phase in terms of upgrading the resorts and casino. We’re very comfortable that we’re meeting by and large the targets that we’ve set for ourselves.”
While Baha Mar is currently operating on the casino license it met in existence, it has made application to the Gaming Board for a license to operate the 35,000 square foot casino.
Mr. Sands said this license should be in hand “imminently”.
In Phase I, Baha Mar is committed to construct or refurbish to world class resort quality facilities including: a 1,000 room casino hotel with a 75,000 square foot casino; a renovated and expanded 1,000 room convention hotel at Radisson Cable Beach Resort; a new 300 room luxury hotel; 400 renovated rooms at the Nassau Beach Hotel; the creation of 100,000 square foot of convention space; world class attractions and amenities; and other residential resort offerings, including a mixed use village and marina at a site to be agreed.
By: Candia Dames, The Bahama Journal
