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Uncertainty surrounds Marriott hotel project
Uncertainty surrounds the Marriott Hotel Project in Guyana eight months after Marriott International announced the project.
Paula Butler, Senior Director for Global Communications at Marriott International told Kaieteur News that she had no updates to offer on the project. Butler told Kaieteur News via telephone that the only information she had is what was issued by Marriott International in June 2010 when they announced the project.
She could not say if the project was on hold and said she would check with the developer of the project and get back to Kaieteur News. A week has passed since that communication and there has been no new information.
Paula Butler
When Marriott International announced the project, it said the state-of-the-art architectural and interior design concept for the Guyana Project would be created by the firm of Urbahn Architects (New York).
The Head of the Privatisation Unit in Guyana, Winston Brassington, did not return calls for clarification on the status of the project.
In July, the government placed advertisements in the newspapers asking for interested contractors to make pre-qualification applications for construction of the hotel in the Kingston area next to the Guyana Pegasus Hotel.
It was noted that the hotel will be operated by Marriott International and be built according to Marriott standards.
The works include the construction and erection of a 200,000 square feet, 160-rooms hotel facility along with a 75,000 square feet “entertainment complex” outfitted with common services areas/amenities that will house a casino, restaurant, nightclub, and others spaces that will be rented.
In addition to interested contractors registering with Atlantic Hotel Inc. (AHI) which address was given as 126 Barrack Street, Kingston, and which houses the offices of the National Industrial & Commercial Investments Ltd. (N.I.C.I.L), a prequalification statement must be submitted within a deadline period.
Contractors had until August 20, 2010 to make an application to be pre-qualified.
In June last year, Marriott International announced it will open its first Marriott-branded hotel in Guyana in 2013, but the government still remains silent about the financial backers of the project.
According to Marriott International, the hotel will operate under a management agreement with Atlantic Hotel Inc (AHI), a company “currently owned by the Government of Guyana (GoG) as part of a public-private partnership between the Government of Guyana and private sector investors.”
However, the government has so far remained tight-lipped about the private sector partners. In mid-May, 2010, the government reacted angrily when Grenada company Zublin Grenada announced that it was seriously considering “a very attractive offer” by the Guyana Government to build the Marriott resort and casino.
Marriott International said the 160-room Georgetown Marriott Hotel is on track to receive LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and is on track to be Marriott’s first LEED hotel in the Caribbean and Latin America.
In December 2006, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) approved a master financing facility of up to US$42 million to finance up to eight Marriott-hotels in the Caribbean and Latin America, but Guyana was not included on the list.
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