The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Port Lucaya Marketplace has entered the fifth month of a ‘rent discount’ initiative to ease a post-Hurricane Matthew burden for tenants that has now been exacerbated by Memories’ pull-out.

While “upbeat” about the Marketplace’s longer-term prospects (see other article on Page 1B), its principal, Peter Hunt, said the loss of Memories and its 500 rooms, along with 600 hotel jobs, represented bleak news for Grand Bahama.

“It is a worrying time, I’ll be honest with you,” Mr Hunt told Tribune Business in relation to Memories’ departure. “We opened the Marketplace three weeks after the storm hit us. We were back up and running, but the resorts stayed closed.

“It’s been very difficult for us, especially the tenants. It’s [the Memories pull-out] now very bad news for the island, there’s no doubt about it, with the loss of jobs. The businesses in the Port Lucaya Marketplace will struggle; they used to get a lot of business from it.”

Memories, and Hutchison Whampoa’s Grand Lucayan property, provided a key source of business for Port Lucaya Marketplace’s restaurant and retail tenants, along with cruise passengers and residents.

However, since the early October devastation inflicted by Hurricane Matthew, just 200 rooms at the Grand Lucayan have come back on line. Together with Memories, around 1,500 rooms have been removed from the island’s inventory.

Describing this loss as “very sad”, Mr Hunt confirmed that as landlord he had moved to ease the financial burden on Port Lucaya Marketplace tenants ever since the hurricane by discounting rental payments.

“We’re still doing it now,” he told Tribune Business. “Obviously, for the month of October we didn’t charge any rent. We charged 33 per cent for November, and 50 per cent of the rent thereafter to work with the tenants to support them and help them come out of these difficult times.

“We’ve lost a few tenants, gained a few tenants, and are at 95 per cent fully let.”

Mr Hunt added that Matthew’s Category Four winds had inflicted “extensive damage” on the Port Lucaya Marketplace, with roofs, structures and lighting among the areas that took the full brunt.

He said some of the damage was not easily visible to the naked eye, and was greater than it initially appeared.

“We’re starting to do this major repair work in six to eight weeks,” Mr Hunt told Tribune Business, acknowledging that the short-term outlook for Freeport’s tourism product and wider economy was not promising in the wake of Memories’ withdrawal.

“Immediately, it’s bad news; don’t get me wrong,” he agreed. “It’s very sad people have lost their jobs. Port Lucaya will suffer losses in traffic, and we will all have to work hard to make this come off.”