Bahamas’ Prime Minister Perry Christie says the unfinished $3.5b Baha Mar resort casino will begin opening to the public in the second quarter of 2017.
On Friday, Christie spoke at a Bahamas Hotel Association event, at which he revealed that Baha Mar’s prospective buyer, Hong Kong-based conglomerate Chow Tai Fook Enterprises (CTFE), would begin “a phased opening” of Baha Mar in April, with at least 700 of the property’s 1,800 hotel rooms ready to go.
Perry said CTFE would invest $200m in “pre-opening festivities” and final revisions to the unfinished property, construction of which was reportedly 97% complete before things ground to a halt in June 2015 after original developers Baha Mar Ltd. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Christie said CTFE planned to hire 1,500 employees “imminently” in the new year, while 4,300 workers would be on the payroll by the time all of the property’s amenities are open to the public by December 2017.
Last month, CTFE submitted a formal plan to the government, detailing their plans to breathe life into the dormant Baha Mar. The plan reportedly included a shortlist of casino operators the company is considering hiring to manage Baha Mar’s gaming operations.
On Thursday, a Bahamian government delegation flew to Hong Kong to meet with CTFE reps. The delegation, which includes Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe, Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson and several members of the Bahamas Gaming Board, plans to tour casino operations in Macau to get what Wilchcombe called “a general understanding of how [CTFE’s] model works.”
The Bahamas Tribune quoted Wilchcombe saying that Baha Mar would feature “the largest single floor casino in the Caribbean, so you have to be sure of what [CTFE] intend to do, what games they intend to place on the floor, where the emphasis will be, which markets they will be catering to, whether low scale, upscale, how they are going to phase development.”
Wilchcombe also addressed allegations that CTFE’s investments in the parent company of Macau casino operator SJM Holdings made the company ‘unsuited’ to operate in the Bahamas. Wilchcombe said the government was conducting due diligence on CTFE that would include reaching out to “chairmen of the various gaming boards in our industry.”
But Wilchcombe suggested the allegations were “much to do about nothing,” noting that Sun International founder Sol Kerzner, who operates the Bahamas’ Atlantis Paradise Island resort, “couldn’t get a license in the US because of some speculation, but it didn’t stop him from putting together a major company, and it proved to be a great fit for the Bahamas.”
