The Baha Mar casino resort in the Bahamas has pushed back
its opening for at least the third time and won’t open until at least May.
Last week, the resort said that some of the rooms at the
1,000-room Baha Mar Casino & Hotel —
as well as public spaces at the SLS Lux, Rosewood and Grand Hyatt hotels —
would open March 27. It won’t meet that deadline.
Now, four new hotels totaling more than 2,200 rooms are scheduled
to open in early May, Baha Mar said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Baha Mar announced that it would begin a paced opening beginning
March 27 and culminating in its grand opening scheduled for early May,” the
resort said. “Subsequently, it has become clear that the contractor has not
completed the work with an attention to detail consistent with Baha Mar standards
of excellence.”
The $3.5 billion project, which broke ground in Nassau’s
Cable Beach area in February 2011, had originally been scheduled to open to the
public by the end of 2014. By last summer, Baha Mar had pushed back the opening
to this spring.
A fifth hotel at the resort, the 694-room Melia at Baha Mar
(a former Sheraton) is undergoing a $19 million renovation. The property, which
will be Baha Mar’s only all-inclusive resort, is scheduled to be open early
next year.