New Baha Mar opening set for March 27

by Brian Major
Last updated: 10:45 AM ET, Wed January 7, 2015

PHOTO: The Baha Mar site under construction in late 2014. (Photo by Brian Major).

One of the most anticipated openings in the travel world is officially back on the books.

March 27 is the new opening date for the $3.5 billion Baha Mar resort, according to press reports. A company spokeswoman confirmed late Tuesday that the resort will open in late March. "We haven't finalized all the details just yet," said the official in an email. "We expect to finalize [details] towards the end of the week."

This past summer Baha Mar officials announced the much-anticipated mega-resort would delay its grand opening from December 2014 to "late spring" 2015. The five hotels that comprise Baha Mar will open in stages beginning in December, the spokesperson said, including "preview openings in spring 2015."

Located on 1,000 acres along 3,000 feet of Nassau's historic Cable Beach, the resort was largely financed through a $2.5-billion loan from China's Import-Export Bank. The resort's developers, the developers, the Izmirlian family, provided $850 million in equity funding. China State Construction Engineering Corporation, which is building the project, holds $150 million in preferred equity.

The 1,000-room Baha Mar Casino & Hotel will feature a 100,000 square-foot casino and act as the mega-resort's anchor property. Also planned are three new resorts: a 700-room Grand Hyatt, a 200-room Rosewood and a 300-room SLS LUX.

The property will also include the existing 694-room Melia Nassau Beach Resort, formerly the Sheraton Nassau Beach Resort, which will be re-named Melia at Baha Mar upon completion of the renovation's third phase in 2016, said a spokesperson. Baha Mar will also offer its guests 200,000 square feet of convention facilities, a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course, a new branded spa, and 40 restaurants, bars and clubs.

Baha Mar officials have not yet announced will hotel will open first or in what order the properties will debut.

The project has faced several disruptions which have led to delays. In April, Morgans Hotel Group terminated its 20-year management deal to operate a 300-room Mondrian hotel on the property. The SLS LUX property was recruited to replace the departed Mondrian.

In July, Bahamas newspapers reported approximately 60 disgruntled Chinese workers, part of the 4,000-person labor force employed by China State Construction Engineering, protested at Nassau's Chinese Embassy in Nassau in a workplace dispute. Bahamas director of labor Robert Farquharson later announced the dispute had been resolved "internally" between China State Construction and the workers.

Obie Wilchcombe, the Bahamas' tourism minister, last year told the Bahamas Tribune he was "neither surprised nor concerned" about the resort's delays, which he said "helps us in work we have to do in terms of marketing and airlift."

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