Luxury hotel planned for area near Haiti airport

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP):

Investors are planning a new sight for arrivals at Port-au-Prince's international airport: A seven-story, 240-room luxury hotel, rising just past the runway.

The $33 million project announced Monday is one of the largest private investment efforts since the catastrophic January 12 earthquake. Planned for private land that has not been developed in decades, in an area surrounded by slums, the hotel is seen by its backers as a critical step in attracting further development and investment to the impoverished country.

The magnitude-7 earthquake killed a government-estimated 300,000 people and left millions homeless. It also destroyed or damaged most of the capital's few high-end hotels, most notably the total collapse of the Hotel Montana near the mountain suburb of Pétionville.

"For the reconstruction of Haiti to begin, the guys who are going to build it need a place to stay," partner Edmund Miller told The Associated Press.

About a third of the funding for the currently unnamed hotel will come from private investors including Argentine energy mogul and developer Ronaldo Gonzalez-Bunster and Haiti's powerful Mevs family, which owns the property.

The rest will be requested from lending organisations such as the Inter-American Development Bank, Miller said.

That effort could get a boost from former United States President Bill Clinton, the United Nations special envoy to Haiti and co-chair of the committee overseeing its reconstruction, who is backing the project.

The property is described as "self-contained," with its own power plant, water and sewage treatment facilities. It would include a conference centre, swimming pool, spa, lounges and other amenities. Developers say it will meet or exceed international earthquake standards.

Unique plans

Unlike most of the existing and planned hotels rocked by the earthquake, the new complex will be a short drive from the wreckage of downtown Port-au-Prince and near some of the capital's most notorious slums including Cité Soleil, where small-scale violence between gangs fighting over aid has recently been on the rise.

WIN Group managing partner Youri Mevs said the project would raise land values in the area and promote rehabilitation of the airport neighbourhood.

"For the last 10 to 15 years the whole neighbourhood's economic vitality has been slowly drained. ... We owe it to ourselves and we owe it to the country" to develop the area, she said.

Contractor bidding is expected in October, with construction to be completed within about 18 months. It is not clear if Haitian contractors will be given contracts, though manual labour is expected to employ people from surrounding areas. Ground-breaking is expected by early 2011.