Movement on Half Moon Bay investment

Principals in the Half Moon Bay Resort have put a preliminary price tag of upwards of U.S. $150 million on the project. This is according to the CEO of Half Moon Bay Antigua, William Anderson, who was speaking on Friday after signing an agreement with Rosewood Hotels and Resorts at the prime minister’s office.
“We would expect to budget between 150 and 200 million dollars. We’re currently in the process of designing the hotel and subsequently we will price the hotel but our early estimates are in that range.” Friday’s event was to finalise the agreement for Rosewood’s management of what is expected to be an ultra-luxury facility. The Gaston Browne administration had assisted the investor group Replay Resorts – the principals behind Half Moon Bay Antigua – in raising U.S. $23 million to purchase the property from the government.
The prime minister was quick to point out that that money was paid over to HMB Holdings from whom the government had compulsorily acquired the property in 2007. Browne also announced that some 1,000 jobs are to be created during the construction and operation phases of the venture.
“My understanding is that the demolition has started and that rehabilitative work will continue for the next few months and that by the fourth quarter of this year, that the actual physical construction, getting to the ground, will start. “So we’re looking forward with eager anticipation. Understanding there will be about 500 construction jobs and that there will be a similar amount of fulltime employment when the resort would have opened in the next two and a half to three years,” Browne said.
The PM stated that his government was keen to have more investments like the one being undertaken instead of all-inclusive resorts as they look to increase the variety of the tourism product.
(More in today’s Daily Observer)