New Baha Mar Vice President Alyssa Bushey has confirmed what many in the community have long suspected: only one of the four new Baha Mar hotels scheduled to open on the new deadline of March 27 will, in fact, open. Local Baha Mar spokespersons have been silent on the fact, as have government representatives, who have touted the $3.5 billion mega resort as the source for more than 5,000 jobs and a major engine for economic renewal. The Baha Mar Resort and Casino - a nearly 1,000-room property with a 100,000 square foot casino - will open as scheduled, according to Bushey, who has served as vice president of communications at Baha Mar since January 2015.
Time and again, Baha Mar has insisted - most recently just over a week ago - that the Baha Mar Resort and Casino, the SLS Lux and the Rosewood would open with a majority of rooms. The state of construction at the site has long suggested that the March 27 date was a physical impossibility, but nonetheless Baha Mar spokespeople continued to assert that the opening would go forth as planned, and that it would not be a "soft opening," either. Now, Bushey - speaking to industry publication Travel Weekly - could not give specific dates for the other properties, although a search on the Baha Mar Casino and Hotel's website shows first rooms available to the public starting April 13, while the website for the SLS property shows availability starting April 29. The Rosewood Baha Mar is taking reservations for stays starting in June, according to its phone-reservation representative.
Baha Mar broke ground in February 2011. The project had been scheduled to open to the public by the end of 2014 until last August, when the opening date was pushed back until this spring.
Baha Mar is the largest resort project in the Caribbean, and also the largest project ever undertaken by China Construction America (CCA) and its parent company, China State Construction Engineering Company, outside China. Just as the Izmirlian family and the Christie Administration are banking on the mega resort, so is the Chinese government, which funded the project to the tune of $2.5 billion through the China Export Import Bank. CCA is hoping that Baha Mar will prove its ability to build large scale projects in this hemisphere, and imported thousands of Chinese workers to build the project. The delays have not stopped.
The Grand Hyatt is set to open on May 1, and the former 694-room Sheraton Nassau Beach Hotel, now the Melia Nassau Beach, is supposed to be renamed the Melia at Baha Mar once that property completes its $19 million renovation. The property, which will be Baha Mar's only all-inclusive resort, is scheduled to be completed early next year.
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