MIAMI (Reuters) – An Argentine energy and agribusiness entrepreneur yesterday announced plans with a Haiti-based business group to build a $33 million, 240-room business hotel in the earthquake-ravaged Haitian capital.
The project for Haiti’s first airport hotel — scheduled to break ground in Port-au-Prince by the end of the year and be completed in 18 months — will be the first big new investment in the hospitality sector since the January 12 earthquake that killed up to 300,000 people in the poor Caribbean nation.
The project brings together Argentine businessman Rolando Gonzalez-Bunster, whose Basic Energy Ltd company is a major player in Dominican Republic’s power sector, and the WIN Group, run by the Mevs family, which operates the biggest private cargo shipping terminal and industrial park in Haiti.
The Mevs family was contributing land near Port-au-Prince’s Toussaint L’Ouverture international airport to the hotel partnership, Edmund Miller, a partner in the project, told Reuters.
The January quake destroyed or damaged several high-end hotels, and the project targets growing numbers of business executives and aid officials involved in Haiti’s internationally-backed reconstruction.
