By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The $42m Fusion Superplex complex yesterday said it has suffered a “significant blow” from constant power woes that have left it without a back-up generator to cope with BPL’s latest outages.

The IMAX-centred entertainment destination said that having to use its generator every single night since it opened last year had resulted in its failure on Sunday, leaving the company and its 400 employees at the mercy of Bahamas Power & Light’s (BPL) current round of load shedding.

Nikolette Elden, the Fusion Superplex’s chief marketing officer, told Tribune Business that the company’s nine-cinema complex had been forced to cancel all its shows last night due to a power crisis stemming from a regularly-occurring “serious surge” that had forced it to over-use its generator.

Dr Donovan Moxey, BPL’s chairman, could not be contacted before press time. However, Paul Maynard, the Bahamas Electrical Workers Union’s (BEWU) president, blamed the issue on BPL’s need to increase the power supply to the Fusion Superplex complex that sits at the junction of JFK Drive and Gladstone Road.

He said: “We are trying to aggressively deal with the issue. They aren’t getting enough power there. We need to run a bigger cable. We are definitely dealing with that.”

Ms Eldon, meanwhile, told this newspaper: “We were significantly impacted by BPL on Sunday. It was crazy what we went through. When people came seeking refuge [from the latest outages] we had to turn them away.”

The Fusion Superplex, in a notice on its Facebook page on Sunday, advised customers that it was not closed but had been forced to cancel a number of show times. It added that due to the numerous power outages it was “unable to operate at maximum capacity”.

Ms Eldon told Tribune Business yesterday: “We cancelled all of our shows for Monday night. There is a serious surge in this area, and every single night since we have opened we have had to switch to our generator. It wasn’t designed to run constantly, and on Sunday it failed. Our back-up is now gone and we we have been told there are more scheduled power cuts.”

She added that efforts to reach out to BPL and the Government to address the issue have yet to prove successful, and said: “We have 400 Bahamians employed. We have nine theatres. We’re losing revenue because of this.

“This is very unfair to suffer this kind of loss and now we have to send people home. This is a very big operation. This is no rinky dink operation. We are going to have to secure a rental generator until we can get ours repaired. This is really a significant blow.”

The $42m entertainment facility, which opened last fall, was developed by the Atavus Group. Its executives include chief operating officer, Dominic Richards; Carlos Foulkes, chief executive; Tecoyo Bridgewater, director and in-house legal counsel; and Demarco Gibson, chief of security, facilities and maintenance.

Targeted at all age ranges and tastes, the Fusion Superplex includes two restaurants; nine cinemas, including IMAX, 4DX, XS3 and PURE VIP theatre; an indoor supervised children’s play zone; a two-level arcade; a Starbucks coffee lounge; and Sub-Zero ice cream that is made from liquid nitrogen.