Staff Writer 

#TurksandCaicos, July 7, 2023 – Football Mega Star Club, Real Madrid is coming back to the Turks and Caicos and the goal in this visit is to train, specifically our boys in the sport which they dominate as world’s best.

Representatives from the Premier League team will arrive in the country for a three-day camp open to boys aged 7 to 14 years old, giving them an opportunity to be guided by some of the best in the sport of football.

The camp is as a result of an initiative by Desarrollos Hotelco, owners of the Ritz Carlton Turks and Caicos and a new development property on Dellis Cay.  They say the camp will provide an unparalleled experience.

Included in the Real Madrid delegation will be José María Gutiérrez Hernández “Guti”.

Guti is a Spanish former professional footballer and former vice captain of Real Madrid who represented the club in 542 official games through three Champions League titles and five La Liga championships.

Perpetually wearing his number 14, he’s described as the “headband wearing, killer assists king,” and is known for his extraordinary passes. Some football pundits describe him as a galactico (superstar) who came long before the era of Lionel Messi and Luka Modrić.

The TCI Football Association says a select group of players from  the U10 and U14 divisions from all TCIFA island-programs have been given a chance to participate in this one of a kind, exclusive experience.

Editorial Staff

#TurksandCaicos, July 5, 2022 – Desarrollos Hotelco, owners and developers of the Ritz Carlton Turks and Caicos are the new owners of the entirety of Dellis Cay.   All 560 acres of prime real estate was sold in a deal brokered by Engel and Völkers between Desarrollos and The Trinidad and Tobago Unit Trust Cooperation.  Philip Misick, veteran realtor and brother of former Premier Micheal Misick, represented the sellers of the property.

While the sale price was not announced, a single unfinished home on the island had been previously  listed for a whopping $3.7 million US dollars.  Engel and Völkers describes the sale as “record breaking.”

But a promise from businessman Dr. Cem Kinay still lurks in the background.  As the visionaire and former developer for Dellis Cay, Kinay has unapologetically emphasized his plans to sue to keep the land he claims is his own.

Dellis Cay was sold to Kinay, a Turkish hotelier in 2005 by a private owner for $18 million and he started a luxury project with Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group.  The first phase should have  been completed in 2009 but that would not happen; it was unequivocally interrupted by the scandalous Commission of Inquiry (of the same year) into the alleged nefarious government affairs of the previous Mike Misick administration.  Sadly, Dr. Kinay had a starring role in the details exposed in the inquiry.

His vision for Dellis Cay struck such sensational chords, it attracted the likes of mega stars like Catherine Zeta Jones and husband Micheal Douglas who were named as left with incomplete homes on the cay, which sits just minutes away from Providenciales by boat.

All this because, Kinay found himself a casualty of the Micheal Misick administration’s corruption investigations. Named in the Commission of Inquiry, for gifting among other things half a million dollars to the governing party, Dr. Kinay found his land stripped from him and returned to the sale rack.

In a very recent letter to the TCI SUN posted just this past January he said the donation was “totally legal” and he has simply been “victimized by politics.”

Kinay had also forked out $3.2 million for Joe Grant Cay.  That too was repossessed and sold in 2013.

A 350 acre section of Dellis Cay went up for auction in June 2019 and but no one bought the property.  Now Desarrollos is promising to revive the island, completing the homes Kinay left behind and adding many more amenities.

Actual homes built by Kinay are also listed on real estate sites for sale, all of them only partially constructed.  The property is currently listed for development by Carib Developments. 

Kinay is still attached to the property and says the sale is unlawful calling on the government to put a stop to it.

In that letter  to The SUN, Kinay says he will fight the Government and trust in court “at any cost”.  He says he will not leave the island “which I have paid my hard-earned funds to acquire from its private owner in 2005.”

The Reef Fund, started in 2010, was at the town meeting last week held to talk about the Environmental Impact Assessment and as a part of their written response to the EIA, the organization said also that “there is no indication in the EIA that there has been an adequate evaluation of the geological strata upon which the proposed development will be built.”

“There appears,” said the Turks and Caicos Reef Fund, “to be no formal assessment of the load bearing capacity of the substratum and whether it is adequate for such a high rise development.”

The observation being made by the #TurksandCaicosReefFund is reminiscent of the cry of residents in Millennium Heights, Providenciales who after having their houses built in the Priton subdivision, found huge holes forming under the weight of their homes.  The houses in Millennium Heights are a single storey, the RitzCarlton is projected to be three 12-storey buildings, on Grace Bay.

In a diagram, (not the one displayed in this article) the Turks and Caicos Reef Fund shows what the beach would look like with lounge chairs and umbrellas set up for all of the RitzCarlton guests; they contend it would transform Grace Bay from being a low density beach experience to being overcrowded.

But Phil Robinson, owner of Inter Island Builders said that the perspective illustrated by the Reef Fund is skewed.

Robinson, who favours the development said the mock up by the Reef Fund is misleading because guests will disperse along the beach which stretches for 12 miles, even go to other beaches on #Providenciales because they are free to do so.

Robinson, when he spoke at the meeting, was more concerned about his industry; inquiring about safeguards to ensure local contractors are not short-changed in the development project.