WESTERN BUREAU – The new operators of the struggling Sea Castles apartments/hotel complex, the Blythe Group, has changed the name of the facility in an effort to boost its position in the tourism market.

The new name, Rose Hall Castles Beach Resort, became effective on September 1 and already appears to be reaping some measure of success. Occupancy levels, according to food and beverage manager Brian Effs, were up to 43 per cent in the period before Hurricane Ivan.

“The new Blythe Group is now up to reposition itself in the international marketplace under the name of Rose Hall Castles Beach Resort, divorcing itself from its former name of Sea Castles,” said Effs. “We want to correct the perception in the marketplace because of the rough times previous managers went through. The property remains essentially a pristine area of untouched beauty waiting for the incoming visitors,” he added.

Sixty-two of the 198 rooms on the property are controlled by the Blythe Group – which is comprised of chairman Neville Blythe of the UGI Group, Donald Millings of the Master Builder’s Association, Ralph Smith of Tropical Tours, Allister Cooke and Peter Thomas. The group now has controlling interest in the property after purchasing the shares of the Urban Development Corporation, which built the resort in the 1990s. The remaining 128 rooms are strata-directed, and under the control of private owners.

Effs said that the name change would herald no other immediate changes at the facility, which only recently underwent extensive refurbishment.

“All the services that we offered before are still being offered. We are suitably set for beach functions. Poolside is fine. The tennis court is lit for playing at night. The beach is suitably set for beach parties (and) family fun. And, we have a theatrical type stage for entertainment. We are getting more popular with weddings,” he noted.

The resort has, over the years, enjoyed a rather checkered history of acute financial challenges that have resulted in a rapid series of changes in its operations and, in particular, its management. In 2002, Lanzie Wedderburn assumed its management and threatened to take scores of delinquent apartment owners to court in order to collect the $27 million in maintainance that they owed. The larger objective was to rescue the near-bankrupt Sea Castles, which was built in tandem with a concept for participation in the tourism industry. It is this concept that enables owners of the individual apartments to either live in them, rent them to long-term tenants or have them rented by the management company that runs the property.

Wedderburn took over from the Canadian hotel management firm, Chameleon, who had left behind an operation owing $8 million in electricity and telephone bills.

Before Chameleon, the resort had been managed by Comfort Inn & Suites between 1998-1999, and prior to that, in 1996/97, by the Friends Group – the hotel arm of Delroy Lindsay’s now defunct Corporate Group.

Meanwhile, the National Water Commission (NWC) was in 2002 forced to file a lawsuit against then operators, Chameleon, following several unsuccessful attempts to have them service an outstanding bill. According to the NWC, the resort had owed them $3.3 million from August of the previous year. The Commission also charged that one of its employees had been assaulted while checking out allegations of illegal connections on the property.

Chameleon subsequently paid the bill. All outstanding debts have since been serviced, present general manager Leroy Vernon told the Observer on Thursday.