- Construction halted for over a year with no policy direction
- SOERU in disarray following board resignations
- Officials unclear on project status as uncertainty grows
- Developers await Govt. directive to resume work
Construction of the controversial Grand Hyatt Hotel in Colombo continues to be in limbo, awaiting a policy decision from the Government after the suspension of construction around one-and-a-half years ago.
The hotel is owned by Sino Lanka Hotels & Spa Ltd., a subsidiary of Canwill Holdings Ltd.
When contacted by The Sunday Morning Business, Department of Public Enterprises Director General P.A.S. Athula Kumara was unable to comment on the current status of construction of the project, despite confirming that the Grand Hyatt Hotel came under the supervision of the department.
He further claimed that the State-Owned Enterprise Restructuring Unit (SOERU) had taken over the project and that thereafter the Department of Public Enterprises had not received any information with regard to the current status of constructions at the hotel.
Responding to questions concerning the fate of the Grand Hyatt Hotel, he stated: “The Government will take a policy decision. It hasn’t been conveyed to us yet.”
Speaking to The Sunday Morning Business, sources from the SOERU confirmed that all board members of the unit had resigned the day after the 2024 Presidential Election.
Upon being questioned about whether the SOERU was still functional, Kumara claimed to be unaware of the fate of the unit. “We do not know. We haven’t received any clear information,” he said.
Speaking to The Sunday Morning Business, Canwill Holdings Managing Director and Senior Architect Dr. Ravihansa Chandratilake confirmed that construction of the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Colombo had been suspended about one-and-a-half years ago and that they had been awaiting a decision by the Government to recommence construction.
“We are waiting for a direction from the Government. It was the same situation with the previous Government, where a decision didn’t materialise. Now we want a direction from the incumbent Government,” he said.
The Grand Hyatt Hotel project in Colombo, together with its sister project Hyatt Regency Hotel in Hambantota, has been mired in controversy since its inception in 2012.
While the Board of Directors of Helanco Hotels & Spa Ltd. – a subsidiary of Canwill Holdings Ltd. – decided in 2015 to abandon the project to construct the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Hambantota in the face of allegations regarding financial fraud, the construction of the 47-storey five-star Grand Hyatt Hotel in Colombo featuring 458 guestrooms and 100 serviced apartments continued despite numerous delays and cost overruns.
In July 2020, the previous Government established a new real estate and property development company called Selendiva Investments Ltd. with the intention of restructuring and transforming underperforming and underutilised State-owned assets to their full potential via appropriate Public-Private Partnership (PPP) investments.
Accordingly, several key State-owned real estate assets including Canwill Holdings Ltd. and its subsidiaries were vested in Selendiva Investments Ltd. and the previous Government announced in December 2020 that construction of the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Colombo would be completed by the end of 2022.
However, these plans were later abandoned by the previous Government during the economic crisis and it was reported that steps were being taken to wind up Selendiva Investments.