“Much-anticipated breakthrough”
By the Caribbean Journal staff
Baha Mar contractor China Construction America has returned to the major project’s construction site, the development’s joint liquidators confirmed this week.
The company has “returned to the site for analysis and assessment of the work necessary to complete the project,” according to the statement from liquidators KRyS Global (Bahamas) and AlixPartners.
The liquidators said the move was a “much-anticipated breakthrough” in the stalled $3.5 billion resort project, following a nine-week hiatus since developer Baha Mar, Ltd filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
With one exception, that filing was later dismissed when a Bahamian court appointed the liquidators.
“We’re delighted to be working alongside CCA,” said Alastair Beveridge of AlixPartners. “Their role here is extremely important and together we will now assess what needs to be done, and how long it will take, in order to complete Baha Mar such that it may open its doors to the public and introduce thousands of new visitors to The Bahamas.”
In recent weeks, the two liquidators have been engaged in talks with CCA on the fate of what is the largest resort project in the Caribbean region.
“The work that we will now jointly undertake will inform the next round of talks with all parties. Those talks will take place in due course following the completion of our assessment,” Beveridge said.
Bahamas Prime Minister Perry Christie also held talks with China Construction America executives in New York this week, saying that he had been reassured by China Construction’s chairman of “his full cooperation to ensure its early completion and opening.”
A source familiar with Baha Mar questioned the claim by the liquidators, saying that the statement “[promoted] a hard-to-believe scenario that progress is being made at Baha Mar following the Court’s appointment of Joint Provisional Liquidator’s and a potential liquidation scenario,” pointing to the fact that the property was already 97 percent completed and that “CCA Bahamas knows, or should know, the resort.”