Tuesday, February 16, 2010
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Still interest in Bahamas Film Studios By Inderia Saunders ~ Guardian Business Reporter ~ inderia@nasguard.com: A prospective buyer of the Bahamas Film Studios has said interest could be regenerated under clearer conditions, following moves by government to contact the studio's head confirming interest in a now "substantially" slashed lease agreement. It's all a matter, said FilmInvest head Owen Bethel, of getting the issues solved around any new lease. "I'm supportive of the facility being operated as a film studio, whether or not developed by me or another group," he said. "The investors have gone on to other things... but if it became apparent that everything had been cleared away and government was serious about moving forward and the terms were well laid out, I would certainly be interested in seeing if the group would rethink the whole project." His statement comes as David Davis, permanent secretary in the Prime Minister's Office, told Guardian Business the government was now awaiting word from Ross Fuller before it acts on a new Heads of Agreement (HOA) with his company Gold Rock Creek, which owns and operates the BFS. Davis is also admitting that the government was "at fault" for the delay in the process. "I can say that the government was at fault [because] we were seeking to draft a Heads of Agreement with the assistance of the Attorney General's Office and that took longer that we anticipated," Davis explained. "Media reports seem to suggest that Ross Fuller is no longer interested in that project anymore, so I have written him as early as last week asking him to confirm that position otherwise. "We are not doing anything until we hear from him." He said the terms of the new lease had been arrived at and would be detailed in a HOA, but confirmed that the acreage - the reasoning behind the new agreement - has been substantially cut. It's a move that is more than a year in the making, following a decision by government - the owner of the land - to take back most of the 3,000 acres attached to the studio site, most famously known as a shooting locale for Pirates of the Caribbean II and III. Guardian Business understands that acreage now amounts to just over 100 acres. Without the lease agreement finalized, Gold Rock Creek was restricted in its ability to make good on its end of a sales agreement to FilmInvest; namely, to deliver not only the studio's existing infrastructure but also the leased land needed to expand the operation. While it was originally intended for Fuller to do much of that expansion work himself, the ongoing delays have sparked the operator to announce plans to pull out of the project all together and abandon the facility. It is unclear now when and if Fuller intends to carry out that promise made earlier. He asserted earlier that government delays in producing a new lease for the BFS have cost the facility — to say nothing of the surrounding Freeport community — three production contracts and possibly millions of dollars those deals would have pumped into the local economy.
Wednesday January 3, 2010 |
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