Baha Mar Resorts, the much-touted $2.6 billion project on Cable Beach in Nassau, continues to move forward at a snail’s pace.
The most recent stumbling block is a controversial foreign work component calling for the project to employ thousands more Chinese workers than Bahamian workers during the four-year-plus construction phase.
This matter could go as far as the Bahamas Parliament before it is ruled on and agreed on, according to the Nassau Guardian newspaper.
The project’s timeline dates to 2002, when the Baha Mar Development Co. was formed and its management team was assembled.
Fast forward to March 30, when development contracts were signed in Miami between Baha Mar and the Export-Import Bank of China, which is financing the project, and the China State Construction Engineering Corp., which is serving as general contractor as well as a minority investor.
The contract signing ended a two-year stalemate that began when Harrah’s Entertainment bailed on the project in March 2008.
Once the government of the People’s Republic of China had officially approved the Baha Mar deal, Baha Mar officials and Bahamian government officials began meeting regarding the labor issue.
The Chinese reportedly are proposing a worker ratio of five Chinese workers to every three Bahamian workers during the construction phase.
Estimates place the total number of construction jobs that the project will create at between 10,000 and 11,000, with at least 3,300 jobs set aside for Bahamians, according to news reports.
Once completed, the vast project is expected to create up to 8,000 permanent positions, the majority of which will be filled by Bahamians. The resort is expected to be a huge stimulus for revitalizing the Bahamian economy.
Also, bids will go out to many Bahamian contractors for initial infrastructure work needed to prepare the site.
The project is indeed vast. When completed, Baha Mar will include six resorts with a total of 3,400 rooms; a 100,000-square-foot casino; three spas; an 18-hole golf course; meetings space; a 20-acre beach and pool complex; and a 35,000-square-foot retail village with shops, restaurants and entertainment venues set along 3,000 feet of beachfront property.
Of the six hotels, four will be new properties: a convention hotel, a lifestyle hotel, a luxury hotel and a casino hotel.
The new properties will be in addition to the hotels Baha Mar currently operates: the 694-room Sheraton Nassau Beach Resort and the 550-room Wyndham Nassau Resort.
The Wyndham closed Aug. 23 as a cost-saving measure during the slow season. It will reopen Oct. 7. The Sheraton remains open.
The Nassau Beach Hotel, a separate property on Cable Beach that Baha Mar purchased in 2007 and then closed because it needed extensive renovations, will be demolished. No date has been set for the demolition.