Sandals project to get started next year

Work on the former Almond Beach Village property at Heywoods in St. Peter, which was purchased by Sandals Barbados, is expected to start early next year.

So says Public Relations Manager at Sandals Barbados, David Hinds, who spoke to The Barbados Advocate on day two of the Sandals Barbados job fair at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre (LESC).

“We have plans for Beaches. As you know, we also purchased the property at Almond, St. Peter, Heywoods. So we have plans of addressing that early next year; at least breaking ground, starting the Beaches project which should be completed …by the year 2020 or so. But as you know, with construction, we may be going into Tobago as well.
So we would have to see exactly how the Chairman manoeuvres or if the plans have changed some bit. But I know we are committed to having a Beaches in Barbados.”

However, the PR manager stated that their main focus right now is on Sandals Royal Barbados, which with the additional 222 rooms would make it the largest hotel – by room numbers – in Barbados.

“We are also proud to say that with the addition of the extra 222 rooms, we would become the biggest hotel by room, I think, in Barbados and our labour force is going to be at least close to 1 400 persons. So we are really excited about that and…we are optimistic that from this job fair we would be able to find the best persons,” Hinds said.

“Right now we have about 671 employees. We have 280 rooms currently; we are going to add another 222 which takes us to 502 rooms for the two hotels…so that is pretty good. Overall, I think – I speak subject to correction – we are going to be on about 20 acres or so with both properties combined. So we hope for a successful opening in a few months.”