Businesses Eye Return to a Post-Castro Island

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Filled with a passion to recreate the elegant Cuba of their forefathers — and to trade on the public's enduring fascination with the island's fabled cigars, anejo rums and sultry nightclubs — exiles and their children are dusting off old ideas to make money from Cuba's potential reconstruction.

Corporations banned from doing business with Cuba under the U.S. embargo of the island also are assessing potential investments, though they are doing so more cautiously.

The most obvious interest comes from the gambling and tourism industries, which have long marveled at the untapped potential of a Cuban coastline, less than 100 miles from the United States, that once was considered the jewel of the Caribbean.

"Cuba's gaming history certainly demonstrates that a casino resort would work there," said Gordon Absher, a spokesman for MGM Mirage, the world's second-largest gambling company. "It's a special island. Like many other locations, we would be interested in looking at Cuba if gaming there became a real possibility."

Then there is the crumbling state of Cuba's roads, waterworks and telephone networks, which are in even worse shape than those of the former communist states of Eastern Europe.

"This is a country where almost nothing has happened for 50 years," said Julio Alvarez, a leading Miami architect.

But the biggest challenge to massive outside investment may be working with the more than 11 million residents of Cuba, who will surely want more than a token role in their country's reconstruction.

One of the more grandiose proposals for rebuilding Cuba — a Florida International University master plan funded by Miami developer Sergio Pino — contemplates moving out all Cubans currently living in Havana while the old town is redeveloped, presumably for the Cubans in Miami.

The Souto family, which has been in the coffee business since the 19th century, believes it has something to offer Cuban consumers that they have lacked since capitalists left the island: a really good shot of espresso.

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