The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

SuperClubs Breezes owner yesterday said he was "ready to start again" on the Cable Beach resort's expansion plans, adding that its 'land swap' agreement with Baha Mar should be completed in the next few months.

John Issa, told Tribune Business: "We had the drawings done and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, but it had to be shelved because the road was being moved, and therefore it changed the configuration of our parking, tennis court and so on.

"We are ready to start again once the land swap is completed. This hotel is actually too small. The land swap should be completed in the next few months." Mr Issa was speaking at his Cable Beach resort, which is hosting a Jamaican Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO) mission.

Mr Issa had previously told Tribune Business that Baha Mar's filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection had left SuperClubs's own plans, which called for a 50 per cent expansion of its 400-room Cable Beach property, "in limbo". The plans had projected the creation of 300 jobs.

He told this newspaper that the all-inclusive resort had incurred a "substantial" loss in foregone profits due to prior delays to its expansion, which resulted from the wait to complete a 'land swap' agreement with Baha Mar.

Speaking yesterday on SuperClubs Breezes's performance, Mr Issa said: "We are doing better and better each year. The Government must recognise the need to support the industry. In the hotel industry, you earn a dollar and you have to put 75 cents back because you are constantly upgrading."

Mr Issa argued that the hotel industry should be given greater preference than the cruise industry. "The cruise industry has leverage over governments because it can threaten to pull-out, but I can't simply pick up my hotel and move," he added.

Mr Issa also stressed the need for the Bahamas to attract more airlift. "There needs to be more hotel development; hopefully on the Out Islands," he said.

"From a sociological point of view there is too large a concentration of the population in the capital. The hotel industry is far more important to the Bahamas today because the financial services industry is contracting. The hotel industry is vital, and virtually all government policy should be geared towards the growth of the hotel industry, which employs a larger number of persons per dollar invested than what an insurance company or a bank or other manufacturing industries do."

SuperClubs' land swap agreement with Baha Mar was set out in a 2011 Letter of Intent between the two resorts. This involved swapping a 0.66 acre parcel, upon which SuperClubs Breezes wastewater treatment plant stood, for land of the same size, upon which Baha Mar was to build a replacement plant at its expense.

The agreement also involved Baha Mar's then-golf course-owning affiliate, BMP Golf, transferring another 2.27-acre parcel to SuperClubs Breezes. The latter also agreed to change the leasehold boundaries of its property, surrendering two areas and gaining an equivalent-size piece of land, to help Baha Mar.

But Mr Issa, in legal documents filed in late 2014, alleged that SuperClubs Breezes had "lost control of its own destiny", as its new wastewater treatment plant - suffering from alleged design flaws and leaks - was being operated by Baha Mar on land that had not been transferred to the former's ownership.

He added that the failure to effect the land swaps was holding up his resort's expansion plans, investment and creation of more jobs for Bahamians, with Baha Mar already enjoying the benefits of using SuperClubs Breezes' land - which sits at the heart of its casino.

Efforts to resolve the legal dispute were further complicated by Baha Mar's Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing in June 2015, and the ongoing battle between the previous developer and his Chinese partners that has lasted for the better part of two years.