The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

DEVELOPERS behind the Schooner Bay community in Abaco expect to have 24 homes completed and occupied by the end of the year, telling Tribune Business that about half of the 133 lots in the development’s first phase had been sold.

James Malcolm, Schooner Bay’s sales and marketing director told Tribune Business that the community now had 67 home owners, two thirds of them being Bahamian. 

“We have 18 houses completed and occupied and we will have another six completed and occupied by the end of the year. At the end of this calendar year we will have 24 homes completed and occupied. The entire project is 435 lots. We only released 130 lots for sale four and a half years ago in very tough economic times for everyone. There are 133 lots in phase I. We are about half sold out but not everyone has to build right away. There are different build compulsions. You either have immediate build, two years or fours years. We’re half way through selling out the first phase. These are  all privately owned homes these are not speculative homes, people have actually bought the property and built the houses,” said Mr Malcolm.

The Schooner Bay development was started by Nassau-based Lindroth Development in early 2007.

“We have about 67 property owners and two thirds of them are Bahamian. It is probably the only new development project in the out islands of The Bahamas where the largest buyer group are Bahamians,” said Mr Malcolm.

 “We’ve had a good summer sales wise. It’s been a productive summer.  The weather did kind of hurt us a little bit. A lot of the south Florida boaters didn’t make it over because the weather was so rough this summer. The village has certainly come to life, it’s a destination now, no longer a development site. All of the utilities are in. We now have four restaurants, a fuel dock, a farm and a number of other Bahamian owned businesses in the village. We have 10 houses in the vacation rental programme which equates to about 30 bedrooms. The Black Fly lodge opened in March and they have had a wonderful summer. They experienced a very high rate of rebooking  with their clientèle which is good for them for next season. We will start paving the roads next months so by the holidays all of the roads will be done which is our next sort of big infrastructure project now that we have all of the utilities underground,” said Mr Malcolm.

Mr Malcolm noted that 11 Bahamian owned and operated businesses were benefiting from the Schooner Bay community, including restaurants, golf cart rentals, a fuel dock, vacation, a destination management firm, art studio and a farm.