After a work stoppage that lasted a little more than two months, renovations at Lambert Beach Resort resumed last month and the resort is expected to reopen by Nov. 1, according to Fabio Arduini, whose family owns the property.
Mr. Arduini said that renovations on Lambert’s 36 hotel units began last August, but halted in late December while Lambert finalised an agreement with the Wyndham Vacation Resorts franchise to become a Wyndham hotel.
Mr. Arduini explained that in addition to the hotel and condo renovations which Lambert already had planned, Wyndham required the resort to renovate its commons areas — including the pool, the pool bar, the restaurant and the clubhouse — in order to join the hotel franchise.
The refurbished property will also feature a spa and gymnasium, a conference room and 24-hour laundry service — making it a “four-star superior” resort, according to Mr. Arduini.
Once Wyndham accepted the renovation designs, Lambert had the go-ahead to resume work, he said.
Original plan
When Mr. Arduini originally unveiled his renovation plans in March 2016, he said that work would last from about June to October of that year, and that the hotel wouldn’t close during that time.
“We will try to phase the construction and refurbishment to keep at least a part of the hotel open,” he said at the time, adding that no employees would have to be terminated as a result of the work.
But Mr. Arduini told the Beacon last month that the longer-than-expected renovation work threw a monkey wrench into those original plans, requiring Lambert to lay off some of its staff.
Layoffs
Mr. Arduini didn’t say how many of Lambert’s 32 employees were laid off as a result of the project, but said that all the layoffs involved workers who were with the resort for less than a year.
And when the resort reopens later this year, he said, Lambert will still be able to hire staff as originally planned. He said in March 2016 that the resort would employ about 53 people after the hotel renovations.
“We’ll certainly need to rehire a lot of staff, and will be in that range,” he said last month.
Along with the hotel renovations that Mr. Arduini expects to conclude this October, Lambert is also undertaking a long-term project of constructing another 42 condo units.
Mr. Arduini didn’t put a timetable on that phase of the project, but he has said that in total the Lambert renovations and condo construction efforts will likely cost nearly $50 million.
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