By VERNON CLEMENT JONES, Guardian Business Editor, vernon@nasguard.com

Developers of the $750-million resort planned for Rose Island have moved to answer growing speculation the project has stalled, yesterday reiterating their commitment and unveiling a revamped design more in keeping with the low-lying cay.

"We have in excess of $100 million dollars invested in the project thus far," Nick Ward, a project manager for the mixed-use property, told Guardian Business yesterday. "We wanted to get to the media to clear up any misperceptions out there about the project going forward.

"It is."

The words will likely reassure members of the local construction industry tensing up for yet another blow to their collective gut. The collapse of the Baha Mar project last March cancelled 1,000 construction jobs in one fell swoop.

Their fears about the Ritz-Carlton project on Rose Island likely stem from rumors that its development group, led by Ward's Gencom, had walked away.

That hasn't happened. Still, a re-design of the original architectural plans — in response to local concerns — has led to major timeline changes.

"We're in the process of re-designing the project and we thought it only appropriate to suspend some ancillary work," said Ward.

The team has now presented Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham with a new model for the 180-suite resort, one that would see the seven-storey hotel complex first proposed cut down to a three- or four-storey building.

Creating a full work-up of those plans will take another six to nine months, Ward told Guardian Business Thursday, suggesting government will then have to ink a new heads of agreement to supercede one signed by former Prime Minister Perry Christie in 2006. All told, the project won't likely open for business until late 2011 or early 2012, said Ward, dismissing the earlier projection of 2009 as overly optimistic.

The re-design, while answering critic concerns about the hotel's scope and size, will little change the overall number of suites. That continues to hover around 180 units.

Ongoing construction work continues, primarily focused on the project's marina and including work on retaining walls and dredging of mangrove ponds. Ward pegs that phase at $30 million.

Some of the key building yet to come — infrastructure work on roads, reverse-osmosis plants and sewerage systems — should begin to flow as early as year's end.

That's predicated on how quickly Gencom navigates its way through its own planning hurdles as well as those put up by the government.

Not likely to present the same challenge, said Ward, is nailing down funding. He points to full capitalization — involving a mix of equity and debt — for the work currently underway.

The $600 million more the partners will need to complete the project should come in stages.

While Ward specifically represents the Miami-based Gencom Group, private equity firm Lehman Brothers, resort owner Lorie Lovejoy and Ritz-Carlton, itself, are all part of the ownership mix.

Their combined name-recognition and track record will likely give the project a leg up in winning that additional backing even as the global credit crunch slows or stalls development projects across The Bahamas.