Kingston hotel project not dead – Jagdeo

Government has been unable to close the local Marriot hotel deal because the Kingston project suffered financial setbacks, but the project is not dead President Bharrat Jagdeo declared yesterday.

He said that reports of the deal being off are inaccurate, noting that he made no such disclosure recently as reported by the Kaieteur News.

The global credit crunch impacted on the Kingston hotel project, Jagdeo said, asserting that many big projects also took a hit as a result of this. Jagdeo stated that the sources of capital that had been identified for the hotel deal were simply no longer there.

But the President underscored the importance of the project, pointing out that government also made an investment.

He said the land at Kingston is now not only available but marketable, adding that even if the project fails to take off “the land is there for future investments”.

The project which is being developed by a Pakistani businessman Michael Ahmad and an Italian, Natale Barranco, under the registered company Adam Development and Urbahn Associates (ADUA) with offices in Manhattan, New York, was expected to receive the Marriott branding.

But Marriott International had previously announced the operations of five new hotels for the Caribbean and Latin American region with two opening in 2008 and another three in 2010. No mention was made of one in Guyana. The first two of the five Marriott hotels was set to open in Ecuador and Suriname and the remaining three will be opened in 2010 in Honduras, Peru; and in Trinidad and Tobago.

Marriott Vice President with responsibility for Latin America and the Caribbean Rudolfo Guillioli had commented to Stabroek News during a telephone conversation last year that the Marriott has taken no decision on whether it was going to manage the hotel at Kingston being developed by the locally registered company Adam Development/Urbahn Associates (ADUA).
He said that although the developer Adam Develop-ment Construction Company and Marriott International have signed a letter of intent on the management of the hotel, the matter remained the same as it was when the Stabroek News had spoken with him almost a year ago. “The project is still in the process of being evaluated. Nothing has changed,” he said then.