Bahamas Prime Minister Perry
Christie on Wednesday said the lender and primary contractor of the stalled
Baha Mar resort have reached an agreement to complete the project.
The project’s exiled developer
slammed the plan, saying it “defies sensibility.”
Christie, in an announcement in
the Bahamas’ House of Assembly, said Export Import Bank of China and China State
Construction Engineering Corp. (both are Chinese state-owned entities) reached
an agreement to finish the $3.5 billion project. The deal was reached after two
days of talks between the two parties and the Bahamas government.
Christie said the contractor and
the project’s court-appointed receivers are in talks to set terms and a
time frame to complete the resort. Christie’s announcement was first reported in
the Bahamas Tribune.
Representatives for project
developer Sarkis Izmirlian, who attempted to put the project into U.S.
bankruptcy last year and has been locked in an eight-month stalemate with the
lender and contractor, bashed the plan.
Izmirlian’s BMD Holdings said it
was “very discouraging” that Export Import Bank of China, “knowing full well
the serious irregularities already demonstrated by its sister company China
State Construction Engineering Corp., would now turn to this very same entity to
complete the work.”
Earlier this year, the project was
put up for sale by the project’s court-appointed receiver, though no price tag
was disclosed.
The 1,000-acre beachfront project
was originally slated to open in late 2014, though it has since been set back by
delays.
Plans call for four new hotels
totaling about 2,200 rooms as well as a casino, a 200,000-square-foot
convention center and a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course.
Izmirlian, who laid off 2,000
employees at Baha Mar last fall, has since criticized the Bahamas government
for blocking the bankruptcy, which he filed last June in a U.S. court, and has
accused China State Construction of misleading the government.
Representatives of Baha Mar’s contractor
didn’t immediately responded to request for comment from Travel Weekly.