Armed with faith in God, a large dedicated workforce and some local financial support, Anguillian businessman and developer Quincy Gumbs, is racing ahead with the family-owned Royale Caribbean Resort overlooking the pleasant scenery of Little Harbour and the nearby towering mountains of St. Martin/St. Maarten, on Anguilla’s south coast.

Visiting the project (L-R) Ministers Victor Banks and Kenneth Harrigan, CM Osbourne Fleming, Quincy Gumbs, Developer and Rosmund Davis, Commercial Loans Officer, National Bank of Anguilla

It is just a year and days now since Mr. Gumbs invited Chief Minister and Minister of Tourism, Osbourne Fleming, to pour the first portion of concrete in one of the foot-holes of the foundation, and today 80 of the planned 175 rooms have been structurally completed. One of the buildings has five floors on one side and four on the other. The other building has four floors on one side and three on the other. A third building is to be erected and will have up to 95 rooms

Two tennis courts are already partly constructed. A basketball court, two racketball courts, a volleyball court and other areas for sporting activities are all cut and being prepared. A double-section pool will soon be in the making. A children’s playground is among the other facilities to be provided. “I am very optimistic that not later than January 2004, all 175 rooms will be on the market. That’s a commitment I have made to the people of Anguilla and I intend to keep that,” Mr. Gumbs said. Judging from the speed of the work, there is all reason to believe that this enormous locally-owned hotel resort will be delivered on time.

One of the two buildings at Royale Caribbean Resort at Little Harbour

Earlier this month, an independent valuator put the value of the project at US$9,200,000 and since then, with the additional work, it has climbed much higher. When completed the overall value of the property will be in the region of 26-27 million US dollars. “We are going for it. We are not stopping short of that,” the brave developer stated. The project is being constructed on 12.5 acres of land and, according to Mr.Gumbs, an additional seven acres will be acquired for future expansion.

Commenting on the financing of the project and the scope of the work so far, Mr Gumbs said: “We keep on first of all depending on the Lord every single day. God has supplied our needs according to His riches in glory through Jesus Christ. He has enabled us so far to have a combination of funding from the National Bank of Anguilla and Fairplay Group of Companies. I am upbeat about our final funding proposal. In fact I can say that while the folks in Europe remain very dynamic, there are also several other banks vying to provide the final funding for the project; and I very upbeat where we go financially from here.

“One thing I want to make clear is that this project has been one of faith and will continue to be such. Each day God is going to supply what we need for that day and that is what is important to us.”
The stout-hearted local developer continued: “As we stand, we have structurally competed 80 rooms and we finished 80% of our landscaping and gardening. The main building is about 25 % completed. It must be noted that the main building has been manufactured structurally in Trinidad and that is going to be here if not before year-end, very early next year.
“We must also say that for these 80 rooms, we have all the windows and doors, tiles, sheetrock and the skin-coat stuff to paint the buildings. There is an amazing amount of material on the site. I am hoping that these 80 rooms will be finished in January and then we will move on to the others.”

The material for the Caribbean-style roof of the main building, with exposed rafters and the original galvanize used in the Caribbean, is expected on the island shortly.

As stated earlier, Mr. Gumbs has a large workforce on the project. “We have an outstanding group of workers. At one point we were up to about 80, now we are down to about 60 and climbing again,” he said. “Our workers see this as an Anguillian project and we have had an outburst of patriotism that I have never seen in this country since 1967. So I give all the credit to an outstanding work team.”
He praised the Anguillian contractor Austin Hodge, who went to the US Virgin Islands and worked in the construction industry for some 40 years. He worked a lot for the US Federal Government and the private sector and has brought with him an outstanding amount of skills and a very dynamic leadership. His work speaks for himself. He is undoubtedly one of the best qualified Anguillian builders anywhere today.”

Mr. Gumbs also has high praise for Project Supervisor Morris Charles, of Dominica, for his outstanding job in anchoring the project and for his continuing advice; Nowell Rogers, the former Chief Engineer at the Public Works Department for his engineering consultancy services; Carl Richards for his structural architectural work; Grier & Associates of California for their working visits and almost daily contacts and the consultants from Koury Corporations, the interior designers from North Carolina, among other specialists from Anguilla and elsewhere.

When not at his office at Fairplay Group of Companies, Mr. Gumbs spends up to 18-20 hours on the project site paying attention to the fine details and fostering harmonious and cordial relations between him and the workmen. Behind him with their support and encouragement are his wife, Mrs. Sonia Gumbs, and all other members of his family.

While building his hotel project, Quincy Gumbs is actively working on his marketing programme. He has expressed confidence in the economic and investment future of Anguilla and wants to see the next generation of Anguillians controlling the economy. “I have often wished to hear one young Anguillian say ‘if Mr Gumbs can do it, I can do it too.’ That will be my greatest satisfaction. My message to every Anguillian is :
‘“Let us get up and do something for ourselves. Stop waiting for someone else to do it for us…”’
He added: “When we talked about this project just over a year ago, we had no idea where we would be today. As I said, if God is in it, we are bound to win.”

Last week Thursday after the Executive Council meeting, Chief Minister and Minister of Tourism, Osbourne Fleming, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Victor Banks and Minister of Infrastructure, Kenneth Harrigan, visited the project. Also present was Rosmund Davis, Senior Commercial Loans Officer at the National Bank of Anguilla. Mr. Fleming said was pleasantly surprised, and it was unprecedented to see the amount of work that had taken place on the construction site over the past year. He pledged that the Government would continue to support Mr. Gumbs to ensure that the project came to fruition.

Mr. Banks described Mr. Gumbs as an aggressive entrepreneur, operating by faith. He stated that the Government was behind the project and that although the local developer was ensuring his own promotion, he would nevertheless cherish Government’s backing. Mr Harrigan also pledged the support of his ministry for the project which had reached a considerable distance in a short time.

Mr. Davis said the progress of the project was remarkable especially that it is locally-owned. He went on: “The National Bank will continue to be involved in the development of Anguilla’s tourism industry. Our support of this project is a manifestation of the Board and Management of NBA’s commitment to Anguilla’s development. We will continue to support commercial projects on the island by way of advice and financing. I would like to take this opportunity to express my congratulations to the management of Royale Caribbean Resort for the progress they made in one year of construction.”

Replying, Mr. Gumbs was grateful for Government’s support. He expressed interest in obtaining assistance with proper road access to the project and spoke about the burning of debris at the Corito Dumpsite and its effect in the area. He was delighted with the financial support the project was receiving from the National Bank of Anguilla.

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