GE Go EleutheraThe island, end to end
What is changing, and who fought it

The biggest thing to happen to this island since the pineapple — and it is happening at the south end.

Two projects at the south end are changing this island inside a decade — the biggest thing to happen to Eleuthera since the pineapple. Here is what each one actually is, what it employs, and what the people who fought it said. Both halves, because you cannot judge the place from one.

The southern tip, past Bannerman Town · Open

Disney Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point

A Disney Cruise Line port of call on a 700-acre parcel at the very bottom of the island. Unlike Castaway Cay, which is a private island, this sits on the same inhabited island everybody else lives on — which is the whole reason it was argued about.

Opened 7 June 2024

Sandbars and submerged dunes off Eleuthera, photographed from the International Space Station
The banks off Eleuthera from the Space Station, 2026. The pale ribbons are sandbars and drowned dunes moving with the current — the same shallows you wade to fish.NASA Johnson Space Center · Public domain · source
700 acres, and what happened to themDisney donated 190 acres for use as a public park, including a beach and an access road, and transferred the southernmost 3 acres — the ones with the historic lighthouse on them — to the government.
The jobs, as Disney stated them120 construction jobs and 150 permanent operations jobs, per the company's own project site. Disney has also said it toured local farms and met fishing-community representatives to identify Bahamian suppliers.
What was built differentlyAt least 90% of the site's electricity is designed to come from an onsite solar array; the pier was designed to avoid dredging; and walkways are elevated to limit ground impact. These were conditions of the deal, not gestures.
Bahamian artists, not Bahamian themingThe permanent art was made by Bahamian artists, led by master artists Antonius Roberts and Kevin Cooper, with Andret John, Edrin Symonette and Dorman Stubbs among those involved. That distinction matters: the work is by people from here, not a design studio's idea of here.

And it was fought, hard, by people with standing.

The Bahamas National Trust was staunchly opposedThe BNT had in 2018 recommended Lighthouse Point become a marine protected area. Its then-executive director Eric Carey said plainly that it was not the site for a cruise port, and that something more sustainable for Bahamians belonged there instead.
Twenty-four scientists signed against itA letter from scientists and experts opposed the port on the grounds that Lighthouse Point holds valuable marine habitat, rich biodiversity and endangered coral species.
There was a rival Bahamian planOpponents pushed an alternative for the site which they argued would generate more revenue and more jobs for islanders than a cruise port would. It did not win.
It split the island, and not along the lines outsiders assumedReporting at the time described roughly 11,000 residents divided — many supporters weighing steady work against a landmark fifty miles from their settlement. Framing that as locals-versus-environment gets it wrong; it was a community arguing about its own future with real stakes on both sides.
What it means if you are buying near it

If you are buying in the south, this is now a fixed feature of the map: ship days, traffic on the Bannerman Town road, and a wage economy at the bottom of the island that did not exist in 2023. Whether that reads as an asset or a cost depends entirely on what you came here for, and you should decide that on purpose rather than find out afterwards.

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Cotton Bay, South Eleuthera · Under construction

The Ritz-Carlton Reserve at Cotton Bay

A $350 million resort and branded-residence development on the site of the old Cotton Bay Club — the Pan Am-era club Juan Trippe built in 1959 and which has stood closed for years. It is the first Ritz-Carlton Reserve in The Bahamas; Reserve is Ritz-Carlton's smallest and most expensive tier, with only a handful worldwide.

Ground broken September 2025 · targeted to open 2028

Sunset over the Atlantic coast of Eleuthera
Sunset on the Atlantic coast, 2012.Trish Hartmann · CC BY 2.0 · source
110 rooms, and 97 houses110 guest rooms and suites plus 97 branded residences — three- to five-bedroom villas. The residences are the part that matters to this market: branded residences reprice everything around them, and 97 of them is not a boutique number.
It grew about 30% before a shovel movedThe original announcement was around 90 hotel rooms and 60 residences. What broke ground is roughly a third bigger than what was first sold to the public.
An 18-hole golf course, on an island with nonePlus a spa, pools and restaurants. A golf course in the south end is a water and land commitment on a 110-mile island where most properties are on cisterns.
The jobs, as announced400 construction jobs and more than 600 once operating. On an island of roughly 11,000 people, 600 permanent jobs is a structural change to the labour market, not a rounding error.

The honest caveats.

Announced timelines here have a historyCotton Bay has been announced, sold, re-announced and stalled more than once across several decades. Ground has genuinely been broken this time, but 2028 is a target and not a promise, and anybody pricing a purchase off the opening date is taking a position on a construction schedule.
Branded residences move the comparablesIf 97 Ritz-Carlton Reserve villas trade in South Eleuthera, they become the reference point for everything nearby. That can lift what you own. It also lifts what you pay, and what the government assesses it at — see the property tax bands on our cost page.
We have no relationship with this projectWe are not selling these residences, we are not an agent for them, and we get nothing if you buy one. If you want in, you want a BREA-licensed Bahamian brokerage, and we will introduce you to one.
What it means if you are buying near it

Between a Disney port and a Ritz-Carlton Reserve, the southern third of Eleuthera is being repriced in real time. That is a genuine opportunity and a genuine risk, and which one it is for you depends on whether you are buying an investment or a quiet place to be — because those two things are pulling in opposite directions down there right now.

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Why this page exists on a property site Because you were going to search for it anyway, and because the version you would otherwise find is either a press release or a petition. An island being repriced is the single biggest fact about buying here in 2026, and a site that hid the objections to sell you a house would deserve exactly the trust it got. If either project changes materially, this page changes with it and the date at the bottom moves.

Checked 2026-09-10. Figures are as reported by the developers, the government and the press at the time; construction timelines on this island have historically moved. Nothing here is investment advice.

Thinking about the south end specifically? We introduce you to a BREA-licensed Bahamian brokerage who works that end of the island and can tell you what has actually traded near these projects, not what was announced. No fee to you.
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