Ponce de Leon looked for the fountain of youth in Bimini. Ernest Hemingway loved to go fishing there. Gary Hart’s presidential aspirations took a nosedive after he went there with a girlfriend.
Now a Miami developer wants to cash in on the sleepy island’s reputation with a hotel named “Hemingway’s Heaven,” a bar named “Monkey Business” _ and a casino that will ferry gamblers from South Florida by hydrofoil.
Besides adding one-armed bandits and blackjack dealers, the proposed $100 million project, scheduled to break ground in January, would transform the secluded fishing village into a boisterous year-round tourist destination. The workers hired by developer Gerardo Capo would increase Bimini’s population by more than 50 percent from its 1,600 residents.
Plans call for extending the airport runway so commercial jets can land _ the only scheduled flight to the island now is a 17-seat Pan Am seaplane. Capo also says the harbor will have to be dredged deeper for a 250-passenger hydrofoil, which essentially is a boat on skis.
Capo’s idea is to make Bimini, only 45 miles from Fort Lauderdale, something more than just a summer haven for deep-sea anglers.
“Bimini is the backyard of South Florida,” Capo said from his Miami office. “There are 750,000 registered boat owners in South Florida. That’s a pretty good market.”
Not everyone in Bimini likes the idea, though.
Longtime resident Stanley Pinder, one of the most vocal opponents, says the 7-mile-long Bahamian island is too small to accommodate the hordes that flood into casinos in Freeport and Nassau. And Pinder says he isn’t persuaded by Capo’s promise that the casino would create jobs.
“It would create a lot of crime, too,” Pinder says.
Michael Burgess, project director of the Bimini Bay Resort and Casino, says Pinder is the most vocal of a small minority against the project.
Opponents still have time to mount a campaign against the project. Capo has received approval from the Bahamas Investment Authority to go forward, which is the first hurdle to clear for foreign investors in the country.
But Capo has not yet applied for a gaming license, according to the Bahamas Gaming Board in Nassau. Capo says he expects to receive a license for his 10,000-square-foot casino within the next year.
Opponents want the island to stay just the way it is, quiet and secluded, says Norma Wilkinson, the island’s Bahamian Ministry of Tourism representative.
Bimini was busy with drug-smugglers in the 1980s until U.S. Customs cracked down with patrols. Since then it has reverted back to the “island in the stream” atmosphere that lured Hemingway in the 1930s.
“There isn’t much there now but fishing, white sandy beaches and a sleepy little town,” says Scott Berman, director of hospitality and casino consulting for Coopers & Lybrand in Miami.
Bimini’s big tourist season is spring/summer. The island attracts about 20,000 people a month from March to September, Wilkinson said.
Bimini gets about 3,000 visitors a month between October and March. “So we need something to boost the offseason,” she said.
Capo comes from a Cuban family with a track record of carrying out big dreams.
His cousins own the El Dorado Furniture chain in Miami, and Capo, 55, has built his company into one of the 50 largest Hispanic-owned companies in the country, building moderately priced homes in South Florida.
Capo was mentioned as a possible investor in a new ownership group of the Florida Marlins, but a casino developer would likely raise a question mark with Major League Baseball. Capo says he’s only interested in the Marlins now as a fan.
What Capo envisions is a hotel and casino resort that would bring tourists and permanent residents to the north end of the island, where he has purchased 700 acres known as Casa Grande.
A 252-room hotel, casino, marina and golf course would come first. Later, Capo hopes to build condominiums and homes.
Capo says he doesn’t think Florida will ever legalize gambling, and points to the success of the Atlantis Resort at Paradise Island as his role model.
South African tycoon Sol Kerzner bought Atlantis in 1994 from Merv Griffin and has spent more than $125 million renovating it. Kerzner’s move in Nassau sparked a similar move in Freeport, where a Chinese group purchased the Lucayan Beach Resort & Casino earlier this year.
