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Grand Bahama on a roll
WELCOME BAHAMAS - GRAND BAHAMA - 2005
Grand Bahama on a roll
Risky dream to a vibrant commercial centre
Freeport is ready for global opportunities, according to Grand Bahama Port Authority president Willie Moss.
"We have grown from a risky dream to a vibrant commercial centre with unlimited human and geographic potential."
Moss, speaking at the annual Bahamas Business Outlook, served up an optimistic view of the economic future for Freeport and Grand Bahama.
She cited developments in marine services, real estate, tourism, business services, light industry and particularly the Grand Bahama Shipyard with its two huge floating dry docks.
World's largest
"We are negotiating for a third dock, the largest in the world, capable of handling the world's largest ships. Cunard has already expressed interest in us handling the QE II."
In early 2004 Freeport Container Port completed Phase IV of its $75-million expansion project. It gives the port an annual capacity to handle 1.8 million TEU's and now includes: 3,400 ft of berths with 51-ft depth alongside; 10 Hyundai Super Post Panamax quayside gantry cranes; two Gottwald mobile harbour cranes; 50 Nelcon straddle carriers; a Navis operating System; 120 acres of stacking area; and a 52-ft-deep channel and turning basin.
The opening of the Isle of Capri Casino at Our Lucaya has generated "a heightened sense of enthusiasm," and redevelopment of Grand Bahama International Airport
continues "on time and on budget," according to the Port Authority president.
The airport's new $30-million terminal will be able to handle 800 passengers an hour, four times its previous capacity.
"This is the first international facility built post 9/11, and is the largest privately owned airport in the world," says Moss.
Ambitious plans are also on the drawing boards for several major developments on the island, from West End to Gold Rock and beyond.
Old Bahama Bay
Old Bahama Bay is emerging as an upscale resort and marina and promises to rekindle the economy of West End.
The Marina at Old Bahama Bay, only 55 miles from Palm Beach, is a full-service marina with 72 slips and a depth of eight feet at mean low tide. Plans call for an additional 125 slips.
One of the few night navigable points of entry in The Bahamas, the marina offers on-site Bahamian customs and immigration services. These state-of-the-art facilities make Old Bahama Bay an ideal transient or long-term marina haven.
Expansion of the hotel property to 48 units and sale of residential building lots on nearby Pine Island and along the canals continues, according to COO and general manager, Michel Neutelings. Impressive homes are already rising, including a luxury model home, designed by the late master architect Arne Hasselqvist, and one owned by frequent visitor John Travolta. Lots are priced in the $275,000 to $1.5-million range.
High end joint venture
DEVCO, the real estate arm of the Port Authority, is active in the local real estate market, including affordable housing, middle-income development and high-end projects, says Graham Torode, president and CEO. DEVCO's landholdings of about 70,000 acres includes 17,000 acres of beachfront property and 17 miles on contiguous, unserviced beachfront. Development is planned over the next 20 to 25 years.
To target the North American market, DEVCO has joined hands with the Ginn company, based near Orlando. It specializes in land development rather than the construction of houses, explains Torode. The company remodels and replants large tracts, with a land plan that comes first, and then the housing is built. The joint venture would develop a large part of the oceanfront land east of the Grand Lucayan Waterway, over 15 to 20 years. It could eventually include three or four golf courses. "We intend to build, own and manage at least two golf courses within the next five years," says Torode.
Boom or explosion
"There is no oceanfront land left on the eastern seaboard worth speaking of. We have the baby boomer generation. Over the next 10 years the number of 55- to 65-year-olds is going to double or more.
"The last piece in that jigsaw," says Torode, "is for us to start the development of the high-end, large-scale, long-term, resort-based residential development programme, the sort of projects that you see in the States, in Florida and South Carolina, with high-end golf courses and hospitality amenities with large-scale, single-family homes, oceanfront property and that type of thing. That's a project we're working on now.
"We genuinely believe that we're stranding on the threshold of another sustained economic boom for the island," said Torode. His enthusiasm is echoed by Minister of Financial Services and Investments Allyson Maynard Gibson.
"In fact I would almost call it explosive growth from West End's Old Bahama Bay, which will be completely redeveloped by one of the leading developers in the Florida market," said Maynard Gibson.
The Ginn company is in negotiations with Old Bahama Bay for the development of a 2,000 acre tract of land between Old Bahama Bay and Bootle Bay, along the Settlement Point shoreline.
"A complete transformation is planned for west Grand Bahama, including the West End village, which will retain its charm and provide significant opportunities for Bahamians to, as an offshoot, develop entrepreneurship," said Maynard Gibson.
Based in Celebration, near Orlando, the Ginn Company was founded by Bobby Ginn and is widely recognized for its real estate development and sales, hospitality development and management and the development and operation of golf courses within its planned communities. Communities are developed not only for permanent residents, vacationers, club members and resort guests. By adding hospitality services and resort amenities to traditional residential-style communities, the company has been able to tap into the booming second-home market and provide luxury housing in resort settings.
With more than three decades of experience throughout the southeast, principals of the Ginn Company have created large-scale, master-planned and recreation-oriented communities around the country.
Major film complex
Gold Rock Creek Enterprises is developing a $26-million state-of-the-art movie-making complex on the site of the US government's old missile tracking base.
Built in 1951, a few years before Freeport was developing, the base was part of the range used to track missiles fired from Cape Canaveral in Central Florida.
The property includes an 8,000-ft runway, a dock along the Port Authority area boundary and installations of tracking and communications devices along the coast for about five miles.
Phase I of the film project is under way with a massive environmental cleanup, landscaping and building restructuring that will turn four old barracks-type buildings into offices. The next phase will include erection of the first of three sound stages and necessary infrastructure, according to Paul Quigley, CEO of Gold Rock Film Studio & Theme Park. He heads a group of partners that includes Belgian film maker Hans Schutte and New York entertainment lawyer Michael Collyer, former chairman of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
"We're not building this complex and saying 'here we are.' We have an inventory of projects we will be working on. We will also be developing a movie theme park and animal training facility
"The first sound studio will be 260 by 100 ft, and will be built within an existing building with a viewing gallery. This should be finished by July of next year.
Training venue
"The third phase of the development will include a tank stage at sea level with a l00-by-80-ft tank 12 ft deep. We will also be developing a Bahamian arts village depicting life in The Bahamas 100 years ago, with a market square for Bahamian artisans."
Quigley, who has spent nearly four decades in the film industry, says the complex will also be used as a training venue to teach film production and to provide on-the-job training in the arts and sciences from animation to cinematography, set design and lighting, sound technology and other skills.
"We see enormous benefits not only for this part of Grand Bahama and the island but to the entire Bahamas as a whole," said Quigley.
The investment is expected to create some 1,200 jobs and pay out $8 million annually in salaries after investing $6.5 million on wages for approximately 300 construction workers. The developer has committed to securing $250 million in production funding, and forging a partnership with Bahamas Technical Vocational Institute in Grand Bahama.
The project was originally approved in principle in May 2001, under the former Free National Movement administration.
Minister of Financial Services and Investments Allyson Maynard Gibson said both the current and previous governments worked to bring the project to fruition.
The studios will produce commercials, feature films, TV series, music, in-house productions, and offer a Bahamian village theme park - including actors, and a market square with Bahamian crafts and handiwork. The studios will have viewing galleries so visitors can watch commercials or shows being filmed. In the future the firm plans to offer a 3D Imax theatre and an endangered species area.
At the official opening of Isle of Capri Casino at Our Lucaya in February Prime Minister Perry Christie predicted that Grand Bahama's resurgence was only just beginning.
"I welcome the opportunity to be here today to publicly congratulate Isle of Capri Casinos and their partner and landlord, Hutchison Lucaya Ltd, for responding so well to the challenge to take this destination to the next level."
He predicted the new casino would add "zest and excitement" to the island and "depth and variety to the activities and diversions available for our visitors."
Isle of Capri operates casinos and riverboat gambling in Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri, Colorado and Iowa, and the Pompano Harness Racing Track in Florida.
The new casino employs about 340 people, and offers 400 slot machines, 21 gaming tables, 48 video poker machines and a 115-seat restaurant.
Pelican Bay completed
Prime Minister Christie also opened the just-completed Pelican Bay Hotel & Suites, next door to the casino. The last 48 town house condos will be made available under a leasing arrangement with the hotel, according to Jim Goodrum, marketing director at Lucayan Marina Village and Pelican Bay Hotel.
The hotel now has 96 units of one and two bedrooms in the comfortable Danish tradition that has marked the style of the complex.
A walkway that skirts the area along the water leads from Port Lucaya Marketplace, past UNEXSO, around Pelican Bay, across a walkway past the Ferry House Restaurant and around Our Lucaya's eastern end and Bell Channel to Lucayan Beach. A gazebo for wedding pictures and three pools, one with in-pool bar seating, enhance the property.
Energy projects
The Houston-based energy giant, Tractebel has proposed the Tractebel Calypso project - a $700-million liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant and pipeline from Freeport Harbour to Florida.
Meanwhile, Houston-based El Paso, the third-largest US gas producer, has unveiled plans for an LNG plant and pipeline from South Riding Point, Grand Bahama, to Florida.
At the same time AES Corporation, a power plant company that employs 60,000 people around the globe, has also unveiled plans for a $1.3-billion LNG conversion plant and pipeline to Florida from Ocean Cay, a former aragonite mining island on the edge of the Gulf Stream, south of Bimini.
None of these projects has been approved by the Bahamian government pending environmental impact assessments and other approvals.
New HQ, philosophy
UNEXSO, which pioneered and popularized resort diving on Grand Bahama, ushered in the new year with a new philosophy and new headquarters to carry it out.
After nearly 40 years of catering to the business of scuba diving, UNEXSO is moving more into family-related activities that include "shallow reef adventures" and "eco-experiences in the canal system when the outside water is too rough," says chief operating officer Don Churchill.
The company has also introduced the mini-breather, Mini-B, a simplified underwater breathing device.
First introduced at the annual Dive Equipment Manufacturers Assn (DEMA) convention and show in Las Vegas in October 2002, the Mini-B is a lightweight (about 25 lb), compact and versatile unit and an ideal tool for helping introduce families to scuba diving.
The complexity and expense of scuba equipment steers many people away from scuba diving. The Mini-B overcomes these obstacles by packing all the necessary components inside a sturdy polyester knapsack.
"Diving was getting more and more technical," says Churchill. "With scuba you're buying the training rather than the diving experience. With the Mini-B we can skip most of the training and we can get people into the ocean quickly and safely. This takes it back to what the customer wants."
UNEXSO has curtailed its NAUI, PADI and SSI training and certification programmes. It has also discontinued its shark-feeding dives, in order to concentrate on family recreation activities. Those activities are centred around the new easy-access 75-ft by 30-ft swimming pool which slopes from three ft to 17 ft deep. Attractive landscaping and a new entrance drive enhance the property, which also includes a vastly extended retail shop featuring dive and recreation gear and resort clothing.
Grand Bahama has seen much progress over the past year, all of which helps transform the island from a risky dream to a vibrant commercial centre.
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