Harmony Cove now slated for 2011

Avia Collinder, Gleaner Writer

Already more than two years behind schedule, the developers of Harmony Cove now say they expect the construction of the mega-sized casino resort in Trelawny on Jamaica's north shore to start next year.

"Subject to the timing of financing, construction is expected to begin in 2011," John Brady, who represents the project's senior partner, John Lewis' Tavistock Group, told Wednesday Business in an interview.

Brady's confidence was echoed by Dr Lorna Simmonds, executive director of Harmonisation Ltd, the vehicle being used by the Jamaican Government for its 49 per cent partnership stake in the project with Tavistock Group, a private-equity finance outfit.

"We will be starting construction by next year," she said. "All partners on either side are comfortable with this fact."

Unclear details

According to Brady, the partners were at an advanced stage in putting together debt financing for the development, the full cost of which is projected at US$7.5 billion. He, however, declined to say how much money was being raised at this time, from whom or the likely terms of the debt.

Neither was it clear what, if any, obligation the Harmony Cove borrowings would place on Jamaica, whose US$1.2 billion stand-by agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) places a limit on its capacity to increase the country's US$7 billion debt.

Harmony Cove, conceptualised early in the decade by the then Government's project guru, Kingsley Thomas, is proposed on 2,300 acres of mostly beach-front property, which the Government ceded as Harmonisation Ltd, as part of its capital in the deal.

Tavistock Group is estimated to have already put US$100 million into the project.

Initial construction

The development is to include 4,500 hotel rooms, 500 residential units, nightclubs, golf courses, a marina and other entertainment facilities.

Construction, however, is to start with 2,000 hotel rooms, the development of which has been given impetus with Jamaica's recent passage of legislation that will make large, hotel-based casinos legal.

Initially, the Harmony Cove build-out should have begun in 2009, but was hit by the 2008 global financial meltdown that not only dried up finance capital, but dealt a personal heavy blow to Lewis, the Tavistock Group boss.

Lewis, a British-born billionaire, lost an estimated US$800 million on his investments in Bear Stearns when the investment bank collapsed and was absorbed by JPMorgan under a rescue plan backed by the US central bank, the Federal Reserve.

But this week, Harmonisation Ltd's Simmonds said of the prospects for raising the finance: "W are at a pretty good place."