The public face of a drive to overhaul and reopen Bermuda’s biggest resort said the scale of the project seen in early plans was “not an arbitrary number” for investors looking to make a return on the Fairmont Southampton Hotel.

Chris Maybury said the stakes had only grown higher with costs escalating and the cost of the hotel probably rising $100 million in the past year.

But Mr Maybury, a close friend of Karim Alibhai, the founder of the investment firm Gencom behind the revamp, insisted that early designs for “the biggest investment that’s been made in Bermuda since the Second World War” failed to do justice to the resort that was coming.

Mr Maybury told The Royal Gazette that a “white-box” artist’s impression of residential developments around the existing hotel were a mock-up in reply to requirements for the special development order now before the planning department.

“We made a mistake by not doing a better job, rather than white mass blocks,” Mr Maybury conceded.

“That was an error. That obviously has been viewed and without doubt caused some consternation but that was for a process.

“We cannot sell ugly. Fairmont will not allow something that is not beautiful.”

He added: “We tried to build into the hill, preserve as much green space as possible. We tried to go up rather than out.

“What anyone has seen until now isn’t even the start of the process as to how it will look … we wouldn’t be allowed to do it by Fairmont, our investors; our advisers would say you can’t sell it.

“You have to have something that looks right, and we will.”

At a town hall meeting last month, Mr Maybury pulled no punches on the worsening world investment climate – and said that the resort risked becoming “another derelict hotel on the landscape” if its SDO was turned down.

“Let me restate that,” he said. “There is never any intention, nor would I ever threaten anyone. Threats normally get a very strong reaction.”

Mr Maybury, who comes from a prominent media background, said that “when you’re passionate about things and there’s a constant flow of news, I would never pretend that I get everything right”.

But he highlighted that “lending has never been more difficult” and that “you don’t have to go too far from the news to realise this is an incredibly difficult environment”.

All focus is trained at getting the hotel back open, with the Fairmont Southampton closed down since the Covid-19 pandemic closed Bermuda’s borders early in 2020.

Mr Maybury said any notion of the inactive resort giving site owners Westend Properties extra leverage at the bargaining table was incorrect – with the owners paying out “millions a month” to maintain the property.

“The idea you would shut a hotel to have a negotiating position frankly does not do justice to O-level economics. To have costs and no revenue? Wow. That hurts.”

He was adamant that the SDO, which was granted a new deadline by the Government until late in May, would pass muster only on its merits.

“Absolutely” no assurances came from the Government that the SDO would get approved, he said.

“Not a word of discussion – nor would I elicit a word of discussion.

“This is a legal process, which we respect entirely and will follow to the letter of the law. Of course we will try to put our best foot forward for the benefits to Bermuda, which are difficult to dispute.”

Extending the deadline adds to the project time, he said, but was “welcome”.

“We are delighted that if it’s deemed appropriate with such a complex document, so many pages, that more time is needed for everyone to fully understand what’s there, we welcome that.

“I would say that we want this to be a democratic and fair and legal process at every stage … we will do that to the best of our ability. We will always do that and always have. If it needs more time, it needs more time.”

An SDO from 2009 for the property was used by consultants to assess the environmental impact of the new development proposal, which Mr Maybury said was the best information available for its team of consultants to assess new plans.

But Mr Maybury said the investment terrain in 2023 was markedly different and that the fractional ownership model for residences attached to a resort no longer applied.

“Not one dollar of government money, grant, subsidy, whatever, is going towards the residential developments,” he said.

“I’ll even go further. We haven’t raised a dollar towards that. But part of the modern hotel branding has to be this continuum of making sure the asset works all year round. If you have a residential offering, all year round, families and visitors will come to Bermuda.”

Mr Maybury added that the developers was convinced that the hotel’s success would satisfy investors to continue with plans for the resort.

“We are so confident about the pent-up demand for conferences and convention business, that we can use those extra rooms, those first units, to augment and expand our hotel offering.”

He insisted that the tax breaks promised for the hotel were specific to the hotel and that any sweeteners for condominiums would derive from legislation already in existence and used by other resorts.

Mr Maybury said that they would be available to Bermudians to purchase: “All the units will be for sale to everybody.”

Although the townhouse developments have provoked environmental concerns, he said: “I would not condone anything misleading in scale or image. The highest building we’ve asked for is six storeys sunk into a hillside next to a nine-storey hotel on the top of a hill.”

Building on a hilltop in today’s climate would spark outrage, he said.

“So thank goodness our forebears had the foresight to allow that hotel to happen … can you imagine the protest if you were doing it now? It’s hard to spoil a hillside with a nine-storey hotel.”

He pointed to the project’s potential to employ 700 Bermudians, jump-start airlift and reverse the challenges posed by a shrinking, ageing population.

“What other ways are there? If we rely on international business only, we have a one-legged stool. This is a great way of continually, all year round, getting people to Bermuda.”

He added: “We have population declining and a balance of payments that’s really troubling to everybody. This is another way of moving things in the right direction.”

An announcement on launching the training of Bermudians to fill those jobs was coming “very shortly”, he said.

Building of residential units will only start “once we have the hotel going” and not until financing is in place and more than half of residential units are pre-sold.

The Government’s guarantee backing the rebuild remains unchanged.

“The Government and its advisers have been extremely astute. There is no guarantee to build that hotel until every dollar to build is in a bank account. They’re the last dollars in.”

He said senior lenders would not sign off on the project until “we have a clear date as to when it can start, because of the volatile nature of construction costs”.

“Until there are absolutely current tenders in for every aspect of that work, they will not lend us the money.”

But developers are confident of exactly that, he added.

“When you have the calibre of lender we have, this is what they do. They lend money on assets that are going to be hugely successful.

“They love this project, they see what we’re trying to do in Bermuda, and they back us with their dollars.

“That’s a pretty strong endorsement. I think it’s been underrated. That’s never happened in Bermuda before. I would suggest that if and when this project is successful, I think there’s going to be a huge amount of interest in what’s going on in Bermuda.”