The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Arawak Homes’ development of Pinewood Gardens unleashed a $500 million economic impact spread over 30 years, its chairman said yesterday, telling Tribune Business that over 80 per cent of the lot sites it acquired have been built upon.

Celebrating the three-decade anniversary since the then newly-formed company purchased all the remaining unsold lots in the southern New Providence subdivision, Franklyn Wilson said the “significant accomplishment” had made a tremendous social and economic impact for numerous Bahamians.

Noting that Arawak Homes and its shareholders had “weathered many storms”, Mr Wilson acknowledged that Pinewood Gardens’ development had not been without its “challenges”.

While the developer had taken “a tremendous beating” for Pinewood Gardens’ subsequent flooding problems, the Arawak Homes chairman said the fault lay with the then-government’s failure to keep the drainage systems it had constructed clear.

And Mr Wilson also warned that the Government had been “saddled with multiple millions in liabilities” after it had failed, to this day, to compensate Arawak Homes for land parcels it took to construct the Charles W Saunders Highway, plus the Sadie Curtis and Cleveland Eneas primary schools.

Describing the “significant accomplishment” in developing Pinewood Gardens, Mr Wilson said Arawak Homes started 30 years ago with just four shareholders.

While Sunshine Holdings held the controlling interest, among the other investors were the Bahamas First insurance group and the Royal Bank of Canada - powerful, deep-pocketed shareholders who gave the fledgling company financial strength and instant credibility.

“That represented the first time that Royal Bank had ever partnered with a local company as partners, investors,” Mr Wilson told Tribune Business.

With Bobby Symonette, Bahamas First’s founding chairman, and Jack Smith, Royal Bank’s most senior banker, both on the Board of Directors, Mr Wilson said Bahamians could see the company was for real.

“There were years we built some 400 homes,” he recalled to Tribune Business. “The economic impact was tremendous, and the social impact was also tremendous.

“We bought 3,305 lots, and I would say today that between 2,700 to 3,000 are built upon. This has been a very huge impact.”

Taking the average price of a Pinewood Gardens property between $150,000-$175,000, Mr Wilson added: “In all of Pinewood Gardens we must be approaching in there, when you add everything up, $500 million - half a billion dollars - in investment. It’s hundreds of millions - between $300-$500 million.”

Franon Wilson, Arawak Homes’ president, added that the figure reflected solely the investment in housing construction.

Not included, he added, was “the multiplier effect” created by persons who worked on the construction, the purchases of furniture and other furnishings by home buyers and the ongoing employment created at businesses that have sprung up in the area.

“It’s been immense. It’s in the hundreds of millions of dollars,” Franon Wilson said of Pinewood Gardens’ creation.

Meanwhile, his father, Mr Wilson, acknowledged that Pinewood Gardens’ development had not been without controversy for Arawak Homes.

“The most significant issue was the question of flooding,” Mr Wilson told Tribune Business. “Arawak Homes always took the position that it met its obligations, which was to ensure there were drains in appropriate places.

“Flooding in Pinewood was generally the result of the Government of the day not maintaining the drains. We took a tremendous beating, but at the end of the day, truth prevailed.”

He added: “We started off gangbusters, and then the controversy came and that created a major issue for us.”

Mr Wilson said former prime minister, Hubert Ingraham, had initially aided Arawak Homes’ development of Pinewood Gardens, by providing cash towards buyer downpayments when minister of housing under the Pindling administration.

But, after taking office as prime minister in 1992, “he contributed mightily to then problems from 1995-1996 when he became extremely partisan in his comments”, Mr Wilson said.

“This led to legal problems which we are still fighting in the courts,” the Arawak Homes chairman told Tribune Business. “We are yet to be paid for parcels they took for Cleveland Eneas, Sadie Curtis, and the Charles W Saunders Highway.

“The Government of the day will be saddled with multiple millions of dollars in liabilities because they not only have to pay Arawak for the land, but the interest.”

Still, Mr Wilson said Arawak Homes and Pinewood Gardens were a testament to Bahamian entrepreneurship, and showed that Bahamians could work together in operating and managing businesses.

Recalling how Arawak Homes introduced technology into the construction process, via a concrete pouring system, at Pinewood Gardens, Mr Wilson added: “We’ve weathered many storms and, today, we’ve made a difference.”

In a note to Arawak Homes’ staff to celebrate the 30th anniversary, Tavares LaRoda, the company’s in-house attorney, said the 30th year marked the maturing of its conveyance for Pinewood Gardens and Sir Lynden Pindling Estates.

Mr LaRoda said: “The purchase and subsequent development of Pinewood Gardens and Sir Lynden Pindling Estates (as well as the company’s other developments) has resulted in Arawak Homes being able to say that it has delivered more homes to more families than any other company in the history of the Bahamas.

“In law, the 30th year marks the maturing of a conveyance whereby it can stand on its own as a legal root of title. This anniversary is therefore of great significance to Arawak Homes, and affirms the strength of its title for the remaining lots in Sir Lynden Pindling Estates.”