Western Bureau: After a year on the market and numerous newspaper advertisements, there have been no takers for lease of the Urban Development Corporation’s (UDC) public beach park property at Long Bay in Negril.

More than a year ago, the last lessee, 3C’s Pastry and Food, gave notice of its intention to not renew its one-year lease of the property “based on personal reasons”, the UDC said.

Since then, the agency has been running ads to take management of the property out of its hands, but there has been little success to date.

“Following the September 2001 advertisements, 13 persons/parties indicated interest in operating the facility. However, only three persons submitted the required documents,” the UDC said in its release.

“Unfortunately we were unable to complete the process of negotiation with these persons because of varying reasons.”

Stressing that management of the beach park was not part of its long term strategy, the UDC said it would rather have “the private sector involved in the management of the facility along with community members.”

The property, which was part of the Rutland Pen lands acquired by the UDC in the 1970s, recently underwent some development work valued at $11.14 million.

The work, which saw the construction of administrative office, shops, sanitary facilities, change rooms, picnic area and landscaping, was carried out in two phases.

Phase one began in April of 1994 and was completed a year later, in April of 1995.

Phase two began in March of 2002 and was completed recently.