THE Wyndham Bermuda Resort and Spa in Southampton is to close at the end of October and will then be demolished to make way for a new five-star resort.

News of the massive redevelopment was yesterday welcomed by Tourism Minister Ewart Brown and received qualified support from Bermuda Industrial Union leader Chris Furbert.

Ownership consortium Windwalker Bermuda LLC, financed by Lehman Brothers, yesterday announced that it had hired world-renowned resort planners and architects Hart Howerton to lead the project. Over the next few weeks they will announce their local design team, including a Bermudian architectural and engineering firm.

The transformation will see the upgrade from a three- to a five-star facility, expected to be completed in 2009. The site will include a "condo-hotel" and fractional accommodations.

Larry Magor, managing director of Wyndham Bermuda, said: "It is regrettable that we have to close the hotel (formerly the Sonesta Beach) as it has touched the lives of many Bermudians during its 45 years of service.

"We look forward to its rebirth as a world-class hotel and resort. We have looked at many options to continue to operate during the redevelopment but the guest experience would be severely compromised if we were to remain open during the construction phase.

"We are extremely grateful to our many loyal employees who have a long history of working with this property and we hope that we might be able to welcome back many of them when the new hotel is opened."

The hotel owners have stated they will comply with the resort's collective bargaining agreement and the Employment Act and will pay full redundancies for all qualified employees.

In addition, the hotel is organising an on-site job fair for employees and inviting other hotels to participate. The fair will take place in mid-September. Wyndham will also offer opportunities (based on normal hiring criteria) throughout its world-wide network to those staff who wish to move. All staff will be offered career counselling.

BIU boss Mr. Furbert said: "The general secretary and I had a positive meeting with Mr. Worden and Mr. Magor and we have committed to working in partnership with each other by building trust and communicating openly. We want to help transition our members to new positions as quickly as possible and will be working together to make this happen."

Dr. Brown said: "We share Windwalker's enthusiasm for this new hotel project. This is an exciting venture for tourism in Bermuda and we are delighted that Windwalker and Lehman Brothers are investing in Bermuda.

"Since they took over the hotel in March they have been wonderful partners with the Government. We look forward to seeing the new hotel come to fruition and we will do all we can to help them succeed."