New hotel, condo complex for waterfront

Dionne Rose, Business Reporter

Lee Issa, hotelier and department store owner, is negotiating with the Urban Development Corporation on a new hotel and condominium deal for the Kingston waterfront, a project first disclosed by the prime minister back in April, well-placed sources have confirmed to Wednesday Business.

Issa has not responded to requests for, comment, but our sources say he is finalising a business plan for placement before the UDC, owner of the property he wants to develop, in a matter of weeks, maybe even days.

UDC general manager Joy Douglas declined comment on the negotiations but she did confirm that talks were advanced with a bidder, whom she said was a local investor with ties to the hotel sector.

"The proponent is to submit in the course of this month a proposal, which we would have to approve," said Douglas.

The plan covers both a hotel and multi-storey apartment complex to be built on the eastern side of the Kingston waterfront.

Douglas told Wednesday Business that the proposed development is on 193,026 square feet of land where the old Myrtle Bank Hotel was located, adjacent to the Bank of Jamaica car park.

UDC, which owns the land was approached by the investor, Douglas said, while refusing to divulge the investor's name. However, industry sources indicated that the investor's family had connections with the Myrtle Bank Hotel, identifying them as the House of Issa connected family.

Other sources confirmed that Lee Issa, the chairman of House of Issa and owner of the Swept Away resorts, was the investor.

He has not responded to requests for a comment.

The Issa family bought Myrtle Bank back in 1943 during World War II, later selling it to the Government in the 1960s, which demolished it to make way for the development of the waterfront.

Douglas said that the UDC will be entering into an 'option agreement' with the investor, which essentially means, that party will have a set period in which to submit a proposal, inclusive of a business plan and financing arrangements, she said.

"They said that they will come to us by this month," she said, insisting that this was a very serious investment.

So far, she said, the investor has retained architects, who have already done the designs for the apartment/ hotel complex.

Douglas said that the UDC would not be a partner in the project, but was simply selling land to a private party. She did not disclose the property's value, saying the UDC was still awaiting the valuation.

"The UDC does not propose to have any interest in the development. Should the investor succeed in raising the capital, the land will be sold directly for the development," she said.

The UDC boss is trumpeting the deal as a good investment for downtown Kingston, which would mark its second big private sector deal following Digicel Group's announcement last year that it will build its headquarters on the waterfront by 2011 on lands that were also acquired from the UDC.

Employment

"The government has an indication that this proposal will generate a lot of employment; that's one of the commitments of the investor," said Douglas.

If the current proposal proves feasible, plans to relocate the Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade ministry to lands on the Myrtle Bank Hotel site will be shelved.

"We have identified an alternative location adjacent to where the Digicel offices would be built," she said of the foreign ministry, one of several government offices that, under Golding's orders, are dismantling rented New Kingston offices to take up space downtown.

It will likely be moved to property sited between the craft market and the police posting. The police post will be moved to the fisheries complex, right across from the soon-to-be-opened transportation centre, she said.

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