(In photo: A rendering of Luscar Place on Pitts Bay Road in Hamilton – Photograph supplied)
Cranes are popping up around Hamilton again as a wave of commercial real estate developments revitalise the city.
And with several of the island’s tourism properties undergoing significant facelifts at the same time, the construction industry has a packed order book.
A slate of commercial projects and luxury home developments, backed up by healthy demand in smaller jobs such as residential upgrades, adds up to plenty of work for large and small contractors alike.
“We’re on track to increase our sales by 30 per cent in 2025,” said Steve Barber, of Commercial Glass & Aluminum, one of the local businesses thriving in the current environment.
Providing some anecdotal evidence of industry trends, Mr Barber described most of his firm’s jobs — both commercial and residential — as high-end.
“There are some large homes being built — we just put eight glass showers in one of them — and we’re doing a lot of glass railing.
“Because the new office buildings are going up, the owners of some of the older buildings are trying to make upgrades to keep or attract tenants, especially when the lifespan of the windows and doors has come to an end.”
Momentum in construction activity has been building for some time. Alex DeCouto, of Greymane Constuction, who tracks construction data, found an average quarterly total of 165 “shovel-ready” projects over the past two years.
One of the limiting factors on how Bermuda’s economy benefits from brisk construction activity is the size of the industry’s local workforce. At the end of 2024, government statistics showed there were 2,079 employed in the construction industry — 72 fewer than in pandemic-ravaged 2020. Of those, 29 per cent are on work permits.
The shortage of local workers means that much of the labour needed for the larger projects needs to be brought in from overseas.
Major projects either under way or in the pipeline include:
Fairmont Southampton
The long-awaited $560 million project to redevelop the Fairmont Southampton resort finally broke ground last November. Owner Westend Properties aims to re-open the 593-room hotel by early 2026.
Interior demolition work and clearance of guest rooms was in full swing by January and Westend said 40 of the 50 workers regularly on site were local. Numerous shipping containers loaded with materials and equipment have been arriving at the site.
Work will ramp up this year and, at its peak, the project is expected to have 500 workers on site.
In addition to the hotel revamp, the plan includes 159 tourism and 91 residential units in buildings of between two and four storeys at the South Shore site.
Luscar Place
West Hamilton has been a hotspot for new office developments in recent years. The latest one in the pipeline is Luscar Place, to be erected at 69 Pitts Bay Road, just east of the Bacardi headquarters.
The investors behind the project are the Green family, whose portfolio of nearby properties include the Hamilton Princess and Beach Club, Waterloo House and Point House.
Luscar Place, a seven-storey, 130,000-square-foot structure, will be built on the site of the Belvedere Building, where demolition work started earlier this year. The new complex is scheduled for completion in April 2027.
The new development will comprise two ground-floor retail units, one of which includes an outdoor patio, and interiors ranging from over 4,000 sq ft to 6,200 sq ft.
The upper floors, which will offer water views, will accommodate office space needs from 4,200 sq ft to over 24,000 sq ft.
Brookfield Place
The developer behind the nine-storey building under construction at 91 Front Street is Brookfield, a global business empire that owns 500 million sq ft of prime real estate around the world, including Canary Wharf in London. Brookfield Place will act as the headquarters for the group’s Bermudian-domiciled affiliates, including Brookfield Reinsurance.
There will also be office space for tenants and retail space on the ground floor, on both the Front Street and Reid Street sides of the building.
David Burt, the Premier, said last year that the building was expected to support about 200 jobs over its 18-month construction phase.
Hamilton Princess and Beach Club
The Green family is upgrading another of their properties, the Hamilton Princess and Beach Club.
Work on the $15 million renovation of the hotel’s 113-room Bermudiana wing started last November and completion is expected this spring. The work will also create six one-bedroom suites that can be converted into two-bedroom suites.
The hotel said more than 100 tradesmen have been working on the site each day.
Other tourism properties
The Rosedon Hotel in Hamilton is undergoing a $3 million renovation of all its 27 guest rooms, expected to be completed by the end of 2025.
The Grotto Bay Beach Resort plans to add 53 guest rooms at its Hamilton Parish site, work that will involve the removal of two tennis courts, a container storage yard, a sewage treatment facility and other structures to make room for two new three-storey buildings.
Azura Bermuda is completing the last of its hotel residences, work expected to continue into 2026. The project has proven a successful model of resort development, using revenue from the sale of residences to fund the building of the next phase, minimising borrowing requirements.
Elbow Beach Hotel has been shuttered since 2020 and went into liquidation two years later, when it was rumoured that owner Prince Khaled Bin Sultan Bin Abdullaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia was in negotiations with a potential buyer. Although Zane DeSilva, the PLP MP, said in the House of Assembly last December that Stephen King, owner of island hotel The Loren, had purchased the site, that was not confirmed by the time of writing. Redevelopment of the 44-acre site has enormous potential for the construction industry.
Another proposed hotel development could be in the pipeline on the half-acre, brownfield site on the corner of Reid and Court Street. Plans for an 81-unit apartment hotel, restaurant and spa have been submitted by developers Stonehaven.
A proposal for a 94-room hotel at Victoria Hall, a vacant office building on Victoria Street, is another possibility. An inspector from the Department of Planning said in February that the application by architectural consultancy firm HDH would be refused under current rules, it could be approved under the new guidelines in the Draft City of Hamilton Plan.
