Pre-development work is well underway in the Rendezvous/Merrywing area in Anguilla for the construction of a major tourism resort comprising a luxury six-star hotel, a Greg Norman-signature championship golf course, club house and residential homes. The preliminary work includes the building of a plant nursery, access roads and the cutting of the centre line for the 18 golf holes. The project replaces the Sonesta Resort which was purchased by the new developer Flag Luxury Properties. The original buildings have been cleared and the contents largely sold to the public in preparation for demolition.

Jonathan Stern, President and Co-founder of Flag Luxury Properties, was recently in Anguilla to see how the preliminary work is proceeding and to present some of the design drawings to Government officials. His company is a developer of high-end five-star resort hotels, residential and retail properties and golf courses, some of which are now under construction in the United States.

The land now being developed for the project in Anguilla, comprises some 270 acres with access to three beaches. It includes Crown land on long lease and property acquired from private landowners. Mr. Stern said the project was a unique resort opportunity, noting that Anguilla was considered as the most high-end island in the Caribbean with top class hotels. He felt that the addition of a golf course would put the island on a different level.

The project is a partnership between Flag Luxury Properties and Robert Sulliman of Temenos, an upscale villa development in the Long Bay area which has received rave reviews in various international publications. The residential homes will be patterned on the architectural design of the Temenos villas and will be serviced by the hotel. The coming project will be managed in association with a renowned operator whom Mr. Stern did not name.

He said Greg Norman had come up with a fantastic design of the golf course and to fit within the whole resort area.We have got the entire hotel on the beach and no building is more than two storeys,” he stated. “It is a very high-end project and what we would consider as a six-star resort. We think the operator, we are going with, is in keeping with that and in recognizing that, this will be the top resort in the Caribbean from a design standpoint, service, the spa etc. In addition we have the first phase of the residential component also on the ocean; and so we think we have created a unique residential development that doesn’t exist anywhere in the Caribbean and Mexico.” He estimated that the cost of the project would exceed US$125 million.
According to Mr. Stern, it is estimated that in excess of 400 construction workers will be needed for the project which will be continuing for over a decade. In anticipation of that, Chief Minister and Minister of Labour, Osbourne Fleming, told the House of Assembly on Wednesday January 29 that he and other colleagues will be travelling to the US Virgin Islands at the beginning of March to encourage Anguillian workers there to return home to work on the project.

“The biggest part of the construction work will be over the next three to four years and will continue beyond that,” Mr. Stern said. “Then there is employment related to the operations of the hotel services to the residential homes as well as to the golf course and club house. That employment will easily exceed 300-350 workers, once the project is fully operational.”

He continued: “With the operator we are going with, I think from the training standpoint they are the best. They have a very intense training programme and our intent, as the owner, is to in the first case provide training and employment opportunities for the Anguillians. We want to be careful of course because we don’t want to hurt or impact the other hotels. It is important to us to see the other hotels continue to succeed along with us and we think the golf course will be helping to do that. We therefore will need to bring in [other] people on the island and perhaps from off the island and take them through the training programme.”
He added that initially some persons would have to be recruited from outside the island to fill certain senior management positions, but over a period of time Anguillians would be promoted to those posts.

L-R: Minister Infrastructure Kenneth Harrigan, Chief Minister Osbourne Fleming, Jonathan Stern of Flag Luxury Properties, Minister of Social Development Eric Reid and Minister of Finance Victor Banks

One of the signs of the new hotel and golf course project

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