By DENISE MAYCOCK

Tribune Staff Reporter

dmaycock@tribunemedia.net

POWER was briefly cut at the Grand Lucayan Resort on Thursday morning amid a reported dispute over unpaid electricity bills tied to the property’s change of ownership.

The Office of the Prime Minister later confirmed that service had been restored, describing it as a “brief issue during the turnover process.”

“The matter of power supply at the Grand Lucayan has been resolved and electricity has been reconnected,” said Latrae Rahming, Director of Communications in the OPM.

“This was a matter of reconciling utility bills attributed to the government and the new owners. There is no occupancy at the property, and operations remain in transition as redevelopment efforts continue.”

Although there were no guests at the resort when the disconnection occurred, about 300 employees remain on staff as part of the transitional operations.

Sources told The Tribune the Grand Bahama Power Company disconnected the resort’s supply after arrears linked to the previous management went unsettled.

The property’s new owners, Miami-based Concord Wilshire Capital, reportedly declined to assume that debt, leading to a temporary cutoff. GBPC declined to comment.

The government sold the 56-acre property to Concord Wilshire in May for $120m as part of an $827m redevelopment plan expected to transform the resort into a mixed-use complex featuring a hotel, casino, marina, and cruise port.

The brief outage comes as the island awaits visible progress on the project, which officials have billed as the centrepiece of Grand Bahama’s tourism revival after years of stalled ownership changes, hurricane damage, and false starts.