The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

TRIBUNE Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

THE SUPREME Court has eliminated a key obstacle to Port Lucaya Marina’s redevelopment by rejecting Grand Bahama Development Company’s (DevCO) bid for a “lease forfeiture” Order that would have allowed it to seize control of the property.

Justice Constance Delancy, in a September 17, 2026, verdict on a dispute that was triggered some 13 years ago, instead ordered that the marina’s holding company, Port Lucaya Marina Company, perform its obligations under the 99-year seabed lease deal with DevCO by repairing and upgrading the facility, including all docks, jetties and navigational aids, and removing any trash, waste and pollution.

Her ruling thus brings Bahama Land Waterways, which is owned by Port Lucaya Marketplace proprietor, Peter Hunt, and his business partner, Shmuel Herschkowitz, one step closer to launching the marina’s redevelopment by removing the threat of DevCO, as landlord, repossessing the facility for non-performance of the lease.

The duo, following their acquisition of Port Lucaya Marina from previous owners Preben Olsen, Duane Crithfield and TG Investments, had immediately begun demolition work at the property only to be abruptly halted by a ‘stop work’ order imposed by the Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA), which is a 50 percent DevCO shareholder, in its capacity as Freeport’s building regulator.

It acted on the basis that no building permit could be issued as DevCo, in its role as landlord, had given no written authorisation for the works to proceed. DevCO’s stance was that Bahama Land Waterways and its principals have yet to provide it with the necessary documents and paperwork to show they are now the actual owners and authorised representatives able to speak for Port Lucaya Marina Company.

However, Bahama Land Waterways, while acknowledging the existence of the lease legal battle, said: “The new ownership has now undertaken the very remediation that addresses those historical conditions: Securing the site, demolishing the collapsed structures and rebuilding a safe and operational marina. The existence of pending litigation does not justify allowing an immediate danger to remain indefinitely.”

Justice Delancy’s ruling removes the lease impediment, but Tribune Business understands there are other obstacles that Bahama Land Waterways may have to overcome before redevelopment can begin including liens and charges secured on the Port Lucaya Marina property over unpaid legal fees and bills allegedly left behind by former owners.

In her ruling, she ordered Port Lucaya Marina Company and, in effect, its Bahama Land Waterways owner, to hire a GBPA licensed and approved structural engineer within 30 days “to conduct a full assessment and analysis of the marina” and prepare a report on the type of repairs required to remedy the lease breaches.

The report is to be completed within 60 days of the structural engineer’s hiring and be shared with DEVCO, and then Port Lucaya Marina is to apply for a GBPA building permit. The trial before the Supreme Court was only held on April 11 and May 23, 2025, some 12 years after legal action was launched, signalling that the deal to purchase Port Lucaya Marina may have sparked the sudden legal progress.

Tracing the origins of the lease dispute back to 2013, Justice Delancy revealed that Mr Olsen and New Hope Holdings paid $3.5m for 100 percent ownership of Port Lucaya Marina Company and “goodwill” on July 21, 2006. The 99-year lease deal with DevCO for the underlying 10.6 acres of seabed in the Bell Channel, with a rental rate of $1 per annum, stipulated that Port Lucaya Marina Company must maintain and keep its property in good condition.

This, DevCo alleged, it failed to do. It served a legal notice on February 7, 2013, demanding that Port Lucaya Marina Company remedy the purported breaches within 90 days. One month later, a GBPA official estimated the costs of the necessary repair work, but DevCO initiated legal action on July 5, 2013, seeking a Supreme Court Order to repossess the marina or, alternatively, that its tenant perform its lease obligation.

Port Lucaya Marina Company filed a defence several weeks later, denying the allegations and asserting “it had not repaired the concrete decking as it was unable to secure a building pernit to carry out the works.

“The defendant also avers that, at the date of entering into the lease, there were no navigational aids present along the eastern, western or central piers of the marina nor had the claimant sought its permission to place or erect the aforementioned navigational aids,” Justice Delancy added. “The defendant denied that it is required to repair and/or replace the wooden handrails located on or around the marina under the terms of the lease.”

Port Lucaya Marina Company also claimed, that since receiving DevCO’s notice, it had “secured all electrical conduits below the water” using a GBPA certified electrician, repaired the broken plumbing and sewage line below the deck area, and “replaced all broken, decaying, warped and/or missing parts of the mooring wooden piles, wooden cross bracings, wooden joist and tie beam and bolts, wooden strip above the deck portion of the mooring piles and wooden joist beams”.

Arthur Jones, while employed as the GBPA’s vice-president of the building and development department, told the Supreme Court in evidence that he estimated in 2013 that the Port Lucaya Marina’s total repair cost at that time was $214,558 including a $40,000 contractor’s mark-up.

And Dudle Francis, the GBPA’s chief building manager, testified that he conducted inspections of the Port Lucaya Marina on August 8, 2017, and March 7, 2019. Following the latter visit, he compiled a June 2019 report “in which he concluded that the marina required immediate repairs to prevent further collapse or catastrophic failures”.

He “recommended ongoing maintenance to prevent further deterioration, and noted no apparent major repairs since his August 2017 report”, Justice Delancy added. “On September 23, 2020, shortly after the collapse of a portion of the docking at the marina, GBPA issued a final notice for repairs to the defendant’s president with a directive to apply for a building permit for the repair works no later than September 30, 2020.”

Mr Olsen, as president of Port Lucaya Marina Company, said that since 2013 he had hired contractors and engineers to carry out repair works and address the concerns of both the GBPA and DevCO. “Mr Olsen stated that he also explored the option of completely replacing the existing docks and replacing them with new structural sound docks,” Justice Delancy recalled.

“He stated that he does not accept that the defendant is under an obligation to repair/replace wooden handrails on or around the marina as claimed by the claimant. Further, there were no navigational aids present along the eastern, western or central piers around the marina at the time of executing the lease. Neither has the claimant sought the defendant’s permission to enter the marina to place or erect navigational aids along the aforementioned piers…

“Mr Olsen stated the defendant spent several million dollars on the marina after it was purchased in 2006 based on the requests over the years from GBPA. He recalled that the marina was closed for a number of years because it was unsafe but could not recall the exact period of the closure,” the judge added.

“Mr Olsen accepted that certain repair works as were required by the notice were not completed prior to the commencement of this action on July 5, 2013. He could not confirm whether one of the outstanding works was the repairs to the electrical conduits. He also could not recall whether the mooring piles, wooden strips and deck boards had been repaired or replaced.”

In arguments before Justice Delancy, DevCO’s attorney, Karen Tyson, urged the Supreme Court to analyse the lease agreement in its entirety while the late Harvey Tynes KC, acting for Port Lucaya Marina Company, called on her to “focus on those provisions that speak specifically to the events that invoke the claimant’s right to re-enter the marina”.

“Breach of the sub-clauses do not automatically terminate the lease unless they contained express provisions conferring on the claimant the right of re-entry or forfeiture,” the judge ruled. “The court accepts the evidence of the defendant that some repairs were conducted as result of the notice, and that there was reluctance of the part of the defendant to embark upon repairs to the suspended concrete dock/quay way without the structural drawings or ‘as built’ drawings.

“The court notes that the common thread in the evidence of the engineers is that preceding with such repairs without structural drawing would be unsafe under the standard practices of construction.”

As a result, Justice Delancy ruled: “In all the circumstances of the case, the court hereby refuses the claimant’s application for an order for forfeiture of the lease. The court hereby accedes the claimant’s alternative prayer for specific performance in the terms as set out hereafter.”