Turks and Caicos: Unfinished hotel to be completed

PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos (AP) -- Construction of a ritzy hotel, marina and condominium project in West Caicos is expected to resume five years after the global economic crisis halted it, the government said Friday.

A group of European investors is buying the unfinished Ritz Carlton Molasses Reef hotel and condominiums from the previous owner, Logwood Development Company, and from the administrator of the original creditor, said the governor's spokesman Neil Smith.

The new agreement generated $7.6 million for the government, in part through property sales, Smith said, adding that construction should resume next year.

The European investors are being advised by Kew Capital, a London-based private investment adviser, he said.

The project sits on the secluded and uninhabited 9-square mile island of West Caicos.

Construction began in 2001 and was about 75 percent complete when it was paralyzed in 2008 with the collapse of the project's main lender, U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers. The development was further stalled that year when hundreds of Chinese workers demanding back wages were accused of detaining Israeli contractors at the site.