Out of nostalgia and curiosity, we returned recently. And have things changed. Barely a mile from our old Coral Beach condo building in the Lucaya Beach section, a whole new world exists. Gone is the creaky circa 1960 eight-story Atlantik Beach Hotel. In its place, a curvy two-year-old 10-story hotel anchors a new 372-acre oceanfront resort with two other modern hotels -- about 1,300 rooms total -- plus 11 restaurants, a ballroom, a state-of-the-art spa and fitness center, convention center, tennis courts, four swimming pools, and the soon-to-open gaming casino, the largest on the island. What was a forest of grape trees, weeds, and limestone rocks less than a mile away is now a challenging 18-hole Robert Trent Jones Jr. golf course, one of two the complex operates.
The island hasn't seen development of such magnitude since the 1960s, when the Bahamas was preparing to become an independent nation. The Lucaya development is part of a Hong Kong conglomerate's $700 million gamble to grab a piece of Bahamian resort business. Hutchison Whampoa financed, built, and named the humongous complex Our Lucaya Beach & Golf Resort and also helped upgrade the Freeport port area. Early this year, the company turned over operation of its resort property to the Starwood Hotel group, owner of the Westin and Sheraton chain.
When we began our four-day stay in the two-year-old hotel previously known as Breakers Cay, mattresses were being replaced by plusher Westin-brand ones. Down the road, truckloads of the older mattresses were being auctioned off to clusters of excited bargain-hunting locals who were carting them off on car tops, vans, trucks, and anything that rolled.
Across the street, Port Lucaya, a 10-acre touristy marketplace, marina, and entertainment center with 89 shops, including 18 restaurants and bars, was bustling with hundreds of visitors lured from several cruise ships and nearby hotels. The marketplace, it seemed, had doubled in size since we last saw it.
