Bahamas News

While a supplemental agreement between the government and Baha Mar and its joint venture (JV) partner Harrah’s Entertainment has finally been signed – nearly a year after the resort developer was hoping to have it signed – don’t look for construction to begin next week.

A paragraph in the press release that accompanied the signing of the agreement warns that not all the hurdles have been crossed.

“Baha Mar JV Holdings Ltd. and Caesars Bahamas Investment Corporation are now proceeding to finalize documents for completion of the joint venture, following which construction of the project will immediately commence. Completion remains subject to certain conditions, including completion of definitive agreements, conveyance or other transfer to the joint venture of rights to certain parcels of real property, and Parliamentary action,” the document said.

Baha Mar executive Robert Sands confirmed that the signature of the supplemental heads of agreement was only “step one” in what he termed “a process” of getting the project underway.

He pointed to the requirement enshrined in the supplemental agreement for Parliamentary approval for certain actions.

“The prime minister confirmed that he would, in very short order, take those issues to Parliament, and that has to do with some of the land that can only be conveyed as a direct result of Parliamentary approval, such as the police and fire stations…in very short order.”

Mr. Sands said that once those matters have received Parliamentary approval, then the requirement to complete the documentation for the joint venture is “getting to the point of near completion.”

“You can’t put the chicken before the egg,” he said.

“These are very necessary steps to get us to the point whereby we would be in a position to have all our ducks in a row for the proper documentation of the agreement with our joint venture partners.”

The original heads of agreement, signed in 2005, calls for Baha Mar to identify the partners that would form its joint venture. Mr. Sands explained that the group is now “getting to that point.”

But even then, once the joint venture partners are identified, and once all the Parliamentary actions have been taken, there are still things that must happen before construction on the resorts begins.

“There are some other things that must happen first,” Mr. Sands explained. “We’ve always spoken about the roads.

“We’ve always spoken about the rebuilding in the commercial village zone area, because what that does is that gives us access to clear the ground for the podium – as it were – for the Caesar’s Palace and the Westin hotels to rise up from the ground.”

“These are all processes,” he said, “that are taking place.”

Mr. Sands pointed out that Baha Mar has already gone out to bid for road works and for the construction of the replacements of the buildings that will be demolished.

“We can jump start this project fairly quickly because we have done a lot of advance preliminary work to get it to the point whereby these projects can be up and running certainly within weeks, and not months,” he said.

Pressed for some sort of timeline within which Baha Mar expects construction to begin, Mr. Sands replied:

“I can’t tell you that on March 16th we will start, but we are very hopeful that that date might not be too far off, and we are very diligently accomplishing all the conditions that we outlined in the press conference.”

Source: Bahama Journal