Bermuda was treated to a rare sight on Monday when the former Club Med hotel was imploded in an impressive and highly efficient operation.

No one would dispute that the implosion was the correct move to make, as opposed to a dangerous and time-consuming dismantling of the building.

The demolition of the building was long overdue. The truth is that the Holiday Inn-Loews-Club Med building was a white elephant almost from the time it was built almost 40 years ago.

An architectural horror, it succeeded in diminishing rather than enhancing its spectacular location and never delivered for the town of St. George's.

Still, it has taken a long time to get to this point. Former St. George's South MP Rick Spurling was roundly criticised 13 years ago when he said the building should be torn down and replaced with a cottage colony style resort. Now it is gone, and few are shedding many tears for the building itself, although there are certainly many memories tied up with it.

The bigger question now is "what's next"?

Developer Carl Bazarian is closer to developing the site than any of his many predecessors ever got, and he insisted again, yesterday, that he would have no difficulty lining up the money for the new development.

We hope he is right. Over the years, there have been so many false dawns for this property that it is understandable that many people's reaction to a new developer is cynicism.

It is a sign of how seriously Government is taking this project that Parliament will be recalled for a special session next month solely to debate the enabling legislation for the property.

Ironically, given the prolonged history of this project, too much haste at this point may be dangerous. Bermuda and St. George's only have one chance to get this right, so great care needs to be taken on the details.

Already there is concern about land being given up for the extension of the golf course, and there are also questions about just how much access Bermuda residents will have to the club, which will no longer be public. Experience, and not cynicism, means that assurances that whoever happens to be the Minister of Works at any given time will ensure the public has the access it needs must be taken with a grain of salt.

Then too, great care needs to be taken with the design and massing of the property. Mr. Bazarian plans to build a 200-room hotel as well as 140 condos, some of which will be available for hotel guests, and 40 fractional ownership units as part of the near $300 million project.

Having gotten rid of one architectural horror, it would be wise not to replace it with another one. And it should be remembered that given that the footprint of this development will be much greater than the old building, that much more open space will be used up as well; including most of the east facing hill overlooking St. Catherine's Beach.

This is not to say that this scale of development is not warranted or justified. Certainly all hotel operators in Bermuda seem to need a residential component in order to make financial sense of the actual hotel business. But that does not mean that enormous care should not be taken to get this right.