The Forum Hotel and Villas in Portmore, St Catherine is at the centre of what is likely to become a legal tussle between the Urban Development Corporation (UDC), the state agency that manages the property, and the Jamaica Christian College, which had leased the facility.

The UDC is claiming that the College has decided to end its 30-year lease agreement to make way for another entity, while the Rev Dr Wellesley Blair, who had signed the lease on behalf of the College four years ago, said they only gave up the property with the expectation that certain conditions would be met.

Blair insisted that none of the conditions were met but declined to say what they were, offering instead that they involved some legalities which his lawyers will be addressing with the UDC.

“I have agreed that yes, the lease was released, but it was upon certain conditions which are not yet fulfilled by the UDC and I am prepared to say what I have to say with my lawyers later,” Blair told the Observer while charging that his calls to the UDC’s offices to discuss the issue have not been returned.

Last week, Doreen O’Connor, manager of the UDC’s Corporate Relations Department, said in a written response to Observer questions that the College had agreed to give up lease of the complex in 2005 to facilitate another entity that has since proposed to use the facility for educational purposes.

O’Connor, however, offered no detail as to who the prospective tenants were. Instead, she said that “negotiations are now in progress with that entity, and as soon as we are in a position to do so we will endeavour to communicate the status of these negotiations”.

In 2002, UDC chairman Dr Vin Lawrence had announced that the property was being leased to the College for 30 years, with an option to renew or purchase. The lease payment, he had said, was $180,000, monthly and the church college was given a moratorium on payments for three years.

At the time, Lawrence said that the complex, which would have been used for health and education purposes, required significant refurbishing. That should have been done in the first three years.

However, the UDC has since confirmed that no refurbishing work was done in that period.

The 200-room hotel and 75-bungalow property was built in the 1970s and started as the Adventure Inn. It ceased to operate as a hotel in 1978, following which it came under the UDC’s management in 1982. Five years later, in 1987, it was handed over to the health ministry but was returned to the UDC in 1995.

It has been used to provide short-term accommodation for personnel working on several government projects, while proposals for its long-term use were being pursued. Among the proposals were a training facility for nurses, relocating the Eventide Home for the aged, and converting the towers to apartments and selling the cottages.