THA puts $24m derelict Sanctuary Villas for sale

Stephon Nicholas

Twelve years af­ter the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, THA, spent 24 mil­lion dol­lars to ac­quire Sanc­tu­ary Vil­las in Black Rock, the prop­er­ty is now up for sale.

The THA, un­der the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, pur­chased Sanc­tu­ary Vil­las and Man­ta Lodge Re­sort in Spey­side for 32 mil­lion dol­lars, but al­lowed both as­sets to de­te­ri­o­rate in­to a derelict, non-op­er­a­tional state.

Man­ta Lodge, which cost 8 mil­lion dol­lars to ac­quire, was lat­er ren­o­vat­ed and re­opened in 2023 at a cost of 27 mil­lion dol­lars.

In 2020, for­mer Chief Sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis es­ti­mat­ed that ren­o­vat­ing Sanc­tu­ary Vil­las would cost 60 mil­lion dol­lars.

In 2023, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said the THA would seek pri­vate in­vest­ment to un­der­take the project.

He said the THA would pow­er wash the struc­ture and car­ry out gen­er­al clean­ing, adding that "that would be placed on the open mar­ket for any­body in the world to do a ho­tel de­vel­op­ment to com­plete that ho­tel."

The Eco In­dus­tri­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny of To­ba­go to­day in­vit­ed in­vestors to sub­mit ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est for the out­right pur­chase of the as­set.

The com­pa­ny said it is al­so open to pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships, long-term leas­es or con­ces­sions, joint ven­tures, or spe­cial pur­pose ve­hi­cle arrange­ments.

E-ID­COT said the pro­cure­ment process will take place in two phas­es, an ex­pres­sion of in­ter­est fol­lowed by a re­quest for pro­pos­als.

It added that an on­line in­for­ma­tion ses­sion is sched­uled for April 1, with a site vis­it set for April 8.

Ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est close on April 22.