By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Downtown Nassau’s revival could be sparked by moving key government agencies there “to spur economic activity”, a well-known accountant arguing the area should not solely rely on tourists.

Craig A. ‘Tony’ Gomez, the Baker Tilly Gomez accountant and partner, told Tribune Business that moving government offices back downtown - especially to the section ‘east of East Street’ - would provide “the framework” to attract Bahamian entrepreneurs to return.

He explained that the presence of government workers, and members of the public accessing the services they provided, would provide a ready-made customer base to ensure the economic viability of Bahamian retailers and restaurants.

“We’ve just got to enhance the physical plant of the Bahamas, and generate more revenues,” Mr Gomez told Tribune Business. “It was good to hear Mr D’Aguilar [the minister of tourism] say we need to address downtown’s development. We need to address it for so many reasons.

“Downtown is seen to be the centre of your economic activity. It is where economic activity is found. Why is downtown the way it is?”

He added: “I would encourage the new government to perhaps consider moving some of its offices back to downtown to create some activity in the area. It doesn’t have to be touristic. The centre of the city is the centre of your city.

“Every country wants to have an active city centre. We’ve done the opposite.”

Mr Gomez suggested that locating government offices ‘east of East Street’, a section of downtown Nassau that has continued to deteriorate since the shipping industry relocated to Arawak Cay, would “create a customer base” that Bahamian entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized businesses can feed off.

“We have to create a downtown that creates economic, social and touristic activity,” he told Tribune Business. “Not everyone can drive to Oakes Field.

“By doing that [moving government offices back downtown], you will have an enhancement of infrastructure, buildings will take on a new look and feel, and one activity leads to another. 

“We will know our money is being put to good use, and we will see other activity apart from Baha Mar. It’s that activity at the entrepreneurial level.”

Mr Gomez said there was good reason to place faith in Bahamians when it came to reviving downtown Nassau and Bay Street, arguing that locally-owned businesses had stopped Freeport’s economy tanking over the past 13 years.

“The only thing that held Grand Bahama together is the entrepreneurial activity of Bahamians,” he said. “The restaurants are Bahamian, the shops are Bahamian; all the non-Bahamian activity in these sectors has dried up in a very big way.

“Government must create the framework for reviving downtown Nassau by putting its offices back on Bay Street. They’d create the framework to put a little restaurant and bar next to the Government offices, and maybe give Bay Street a different look, smell and feel after 5pm. They’ve got to create the framework to spur economic activity.”

The Government’s present fiscal constraints may be an obstacle to any downtown relocations, but all other efforts to revive Bay Street over the past two decades have yet to produce any lasting success.

While there have been individual business successes, the city of Nassau - and especially the section ‘east of East Street’ - has continued to deteriorate, as companies close down and relocate away from downtown.

The first Christie administration engaged the master-planning firm, EDAW, to work with local architects to develop a ‘living city’ along the harbourfront that attracted young Bahamians back to live in downtown.

Little came of the initiative, and the final Ingraham administration achieved the biggest success to-date when it secured the removal of the shipping companies to the purpose-built port at Arawak Cay via the Arawak Port Development Company (APD).

But despite the existence of various tax incentives, and the continuation of the Downtown Nassau Revitalisation Act for another year, the area’s revival has remained stubbornly elusive.

The previous government talked of developing a harbourfront boardwalk that stretched from the British Colonial Hilton in the west to Potter’s Cay in the east but that, too, stalled amid complaints from downtown Nassau property owners that the Government’s failure to stipulate the ‘rules of the game’ - including height restrictions as to how tall they could build - was making it impossible to redevelop their properties.

The imminent full opening of the $4.2 billion Baha Mar resort means that downtown Nassau now risks becoming the ‘poor relation’ of both the Cable Beach-based development and Atlantis, overshadowed by the two mega resorts and with numerous tourists and cruise passengers bypassing it in favour of those two destinations.