Municipal Corporation approves more hotel rooms for Hanover
HANOVER, Jamaica — The tourism room capacity in Hanover is to expand with the commencement of construction work on Phase One of the US$500-million five-star Grand Luxury Princess Hotels and Resorts at Industry Cove in Green Island.
The Hanover Municipal Corporation approved the Spanish hotel chain’s building application at its monthly meeting in April.
Phase One of the project will see the construction of 1,010 rooms (inclusive of 14 over-water rooms), a casino, and two waste-water treatment plants.
In total, the developers plan to construct four hotels in a 2,037-room resort on approximately 34 hectares of land.
Chairman of the Hanover Municipal Corporation and Mayor of Lucea, Councillor Sheridan Samuels, welcomed the Spanish conglomerate’s project.
“They could have chosen many other locations in Jamaica but they chose to invest in Hanover, and for that we are grateful,” he said.
Mayor Samuels said that the Corporation is particularly pleased with the employment opportunities that the initial phase is bringing to the parish.
It is projected that approximately 1,500 tradesmen and labourers will be hired during Phase One of the project. On the completion of both phases, some 2,852 hotel workers – 1,417 in phase one and 1,435 in phase two – are expected to be employed.
According to the Physical Planning Department of the Corporation, the approval marks the final stage of the approval process, as the project has met the requirements of the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA), the National Works Agency (NWA) as well as the Negril and Green Island Area Local Planning Authority and local Fire and Health Departments.
In his recent Sectoral Debate presentation in Parliament, Minister of Tourism, Edmund Bartlett, cited the Princess Hotels and Resorts as one indicator of Jamaica’s tourism investment climate.
“Over the next two years [Jamaica] will see the development of over 6,700 new rooms, over 20,000 new part-time and full-time jobs and in the region of US$1.5 billion to US$2 billion or J$220 billion to J$300 billion in tourism investments,” the Minister said.
