A definitive step has been taken in the ten-year odyssey to build a new five-star hotel along the South Shore in Warwick.

Bermudian businessman Ramadhin Smith and partner David Johanson have applied for in principle planning permission to build a five-star resort similar to The Reefs or Cambridge Beaches at the site where Ritz Carlton made a failed attempt to put a hotel years ago.

The Ritz Carlton was scheduled for construction in 1993, however Japanese backers had to pull out of the project and it was finally scrapped in 1996.

Former Ritz Carlton board chairman and CEO Horst Schulze is teaming up with Mr. Smith and Mr. Johanson in another attempt to bring a deluxe hotel to the South Shore site.

“We have approached him (Mr. Schulze) at the right time with the right location and the right concept,” said Mr. Smith. Mr. Schulze is in the process of forming his own hotel management company, West Paces Hotel Group, and in five years, Mr. Smith and Mr. Johanson reasoned, getting his attention would not have been so easy.

“He's starting right now, he's interested in expanding, and it would be much more difficult for him to get personally involved because the company would be up and running,” said Mr. Johanson.

Plans call for a 104-room hotel, with 40 traditional rooms and 32 two-bedroom villas which can be bought by Bermudians and leased back to the hotel for eleven months of the year.

There will also be 22 residential units which Bermudians can purchase as family homes. West Paces Hotel Group (Opus Hotels) will manage the hotel, to be known as The Cliffs Resort and Spa.

The hotel will be situated on the 14-acre South Shore property which extends from near Paw Paws restaurant east past the Shell gas station on South Road. “The gas station will be relocated to a more appropriate area on the site, and completely rebuilt and modernised,” said Mr. Johanson.

The resort will target high end tourists “for whom money is no object but service is,” said Mr. Smith.

Saying Bermuda has recently been perceived by many as a B-class destination, he added the goal is to bring it back to an A-class destination. “It calls for a change in attitude, we can do it.”

Although the hotel will be managed by a foreign company, Mr. Smith and Mr. Johanson emphasised it is a Bermudian project for Bermudians.

Upper management will likely be from overseas, they admitted, however the majority of managers and workers (probably numbering around 150) will be Bermudian, and Bermudians will be trained for managerial positions. “It will be a small hotel but it will have a large impact on the Island's tourism economy,” said Mr. Smith.

“It humbles me to be part of a project we both believe will be a catalyst to turning around tourism in Bermuda.”

And he added now was the time for those with the resources - financial or otherwise - to get behind the project. “The investment is going to come from within Bermuda. For Bermuda it is something that needs to be done,” said Mr. Johanson. “We don't want there to be a view of foreign owners... No one is more a son of the soil than Rammy!”

Mr. Schulze, he added, is very sensitive to building within the Island. “We've been very clear to him how we want this done.”

Even neighbours were behind the project, he said, adding that was not a concern for planning approval.

One concern for planning approval was the stability of the cliffs on which the hotel will be built. However: “We have done extensive site studies on the stability of the site, and the reports of overseas experts confirm the site is stable,” said Mr. Johanson.

Even during the wrath of Hurricane Fabian there was more tree damage than cliff erosion, said Mr. Smith. “Cliff erosion was not significant.”