The deal closed in mid-September.

The Deal: The HomerBonner attorneys represented Haiti-based WIN Group as it secured a development agreement and about $33 million in financing for a mixed-use project in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

The deal closed in mid-September.

Details: WIN Group will build a mixed-use project with a hotel as its centerpiece next to Toussaint L’ouverture International Airport. The projects, including Haiti’s first airport hotel, is intended to be a catalyst for the economic revitalization of the nation, which was devastated by a January earthquake.

A fourth-generation company run by the Mevs family, WIN Group has stakes in several Caribbean industries, including warehousing and storage, port operations and ethanol processing. WIN owns the largest privately-owned business park, a cargo shipping terminal and a bulk storage facility for liquids.

The project, which is being designed by the Coral Gables architecture firm OBM International, will include a 240-room hotel with conference facilities, an on-site power plant, and water treatment and sewage facilities on a 5.3-acre site owned by the family.

The company and its partners — including Argentine entrepreneur Rolando Gonzalez-Bunster, president and chief executive officer of Basic Energy Ltd. — plan a second phase to include an extended-stay hotel, commercial space and additional conference facilities, according to Befeler.

“This project will spark a whole new concept of doing business in the center of Port-au-Prince,” he said. “It has been very trying, but we learned a great deal about the country, its legal system and how to get things done there.”

Haiti’s capital city has a desperate need for a hotel to accommodate business travelers, according to Acevedo. One of the attorney’s clients had to transform a private residence into a bed-and-breakfast so visitors had a place to stay.

The hotel project is being financed with a $22 million loan from the World Bank in Washington and about $11 million in equity from private investors in the U.S. and Caribbean.

“There was more demand from private investors than we had available [funding] to allocate,” Befeler said. “I think there is a certain moral incentive to be part of the reconstruction of Haiti.”

Negotiating the development agreement and securing financing took about nine months, he said. Managing the expectations of WIN Group executives and their partners was paramount.

“We know everything in Haiti takes a long time,” Befeler said. “Preparing a [site] survey in the U.S. might take 48 hours, but in Haiti it might take three months. A lot of things had to be done concurrently, including negotiating the agreements, ratifying the property titles in Haitian court and presenting the data to the World Bank.”

Acevedo and Befeler, who took several trips to Haiti over the course of negotiating the deal, worked with Miami-based Parmenter Realty Partners managing director Edmund Miller.

“We were all working together with the same mission — to make reconstruction happen,” Acevedo said.

Construction of the first phase is scheduled to take 18 months and will begin in the middle of 2011. The hotel will be independently operated.

Background: Befeler is a partner at HomerBonner and managing partner of the firm’s corporate department. Acevedo is an associate in the firm’s corporate department. 

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