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Panama’s new prosperity

by Guillermo Martinez

Panama City, Panama · My passport says I’m writing this column from Panama, the country, not the city in the Florida panhandle. A quick auto trip to the old Panama Canal Zone to see the boats crossing the isthmus confirms I’m in the right country.
Yet, I get confused when I look all across the city. The skyline is much like that of Miami between the Rickenbacker Causeway and the MacArthur Causeway, where dozens of cranes signal upward growing skyscrapers. If Miami’s real estate boom still shows growth in buildings to house offices and homes for new urbanites, despite a recession in the overall market, Panama is heading only in one direction. Upward! Forever upward! The sky is the limit!
All this in a city of little over a million people; one in three Panamanians live in the capital or its nearby suburbs.
The signs of the building booms are everywhere.
Building cranes crowd the horizon as one looks across the bay that gives access to the Canal from the Pacific Ocean. Ask people for the reasons for the boom and most give two answers: an enormous inflow of foreign capital, and little crime.
“Panama is only second to Canada in the lowest number of crimes per capita in the hemisphere,” said a newspaper editor. You can sense that on the street. Walking to a drug store open 24 hours a day a few blocks from the hotel at midnight brings no warning from hotel employees.
As in South Florida days of a booming real estate market, “everybody” one asks is either in real estate or getting into the business. Money is flowing from a plan to double the capacity of the Canal by the year 2014, a $5.2 billion dollar investment. Triple that amount with three new oil refineries being built in the next four or five years.
Add to that a still undetermined amount of money from retiring Americans who are moving here, where many people still speak English, and where the cost of living is much cheaper than in the United States. One remembers Florida of another era, of decades, long ago.
When Panamanians brag about their booming real estate market they are only stating the obvious. As many as 100 new buildings are just opening, under construction, or in the permit state. Personally, I counted over 30 cranes hovering over new skyscrapers. One of the new buildings will have 104 stories, making it the highest in the western hemisphere, south of Chicago.
Over the weekend, one talked about new hotels joining the construction boom. It said in the next three years they planned on building 9,000 new hotel rooms. Money for them comes from large European and American hoteliers, as well as other well-known investors such as Donald Trump, who will spend $220 million to build his new Trump Ocean Club with 312 rooms.

The hotel industry hopes to attract 1.7 million new tourists to the area by the end of the decade.
Other investors coming into the country to explore the possibilities include Mel Gibson, although some say he is just seeking a hideaway home in a new plush retreat away from the press photographers who hound him.
Truthfully, Panama looks and sounds like much of the countries that border the Caribbean. Its population is truly a rainbow of colors, ethnic origins, religious backgrounds, nationalities. The country is home to Jews, Hindus, blacks, from Caribbean nations, as well as to a growing number of Venezuelans and Colombians.
Nobody could have imagined this growth, prosperity or tranquility when President Jimmy Carter decided to turn over the Canal to Panama in 1980, or when in 1989 American soldiers deposed Gen. Manuel Noriega. Many silently thought that the Canal would not function as efficiently under Panamanian rule it went 100 percent into their command by the end of 1999.

They were wrong.

Traffic in the Panama Canal keeps growing yearly. Panamanians have approved doubling its capacity to permit passage of larger modern cargo vessels. Democracy flourishes amidst the economic bonanza. A city of knowledge for new entrepreneurs and scholars now resides in the same buildings that housed American servicemen for decades.

The economic leaders of the country know they face important infrastructure problems if unbridled growth continues. But for now they are confident in the future. Their record in recent years gives reason for optimism.

Panama Real Estate News

New Panama City Airport Wins $72M FAA Grant
June 06, 2007
By Dees Stribling, Special Correspondent

The Federal Aviation Administration has granted $72 million to the Panama City-Bay County International Airport (pictured) for its relocation to West Bay, a major step in the project’s realization. The relocation will involve the construction of a new airport on 13,800 acres near West Bay on the Gulf of Mexico, 4,000 acres for the airport itself and another 9,800 acres as a conservation easement. Robert Chapman, manager of the FAA’s airports division, announced the grant in a recent letter to the Panama City-Bay County International Airport District.

“Most of the permitting and funding issues for the project have been resolved,” Tom Slocum, a consultant working for the airport district, told CPN this morning. “The project still needs a Section404 permit from the Army Corps of Engineers, which we expect is forthcoming, and negotiations are under way for the sale of the current airport property. But we’re very close to the point at which site preparation work on the new airport can begin.”

The Army Corps of Engineers permit, mandated by Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, is the final permit that the project needs. Slocum anticipates that groundbreaking for the new airport will be late this summer, or early in the fall, with a completion in late 2009 or early 2010.

Just before the FAA’s announcement, the Florida’s Department of Transportation approved $67 million in state funding for the new airport. Since the relocation effort began, the state of Florida has committed about $119 million; the federal government, as well as various local governmental sources, are also providing funds for the project.

The thrust of the project is to replace the aging current airport, whose runways are considered too short by the FAA, and which is exposed to potential hurricane damage. The St. Joe Co., a major landholder in this part of Florida, donated the property for the new airport, which will be the first new airport in the United States this century.

It’s anticipated that the new airport, which will accommodate more flights into and out of Panama City-Bay County, will also spur real estate growth in the area in the coming years. The potential for growth in the Panama City area has been compared to that of the Ft. Myers, Fla., area in the years after the completion of the Southwest Florida International Airport in 1983. From 1990 to 2000, Lee County’s (Ft. Myers is the county seat) population grew 31.6 percent, according to the US Census Bureau, besting the overall Florida average population growth of 23.5 percent during the same period. By 2005, Lee County’s population had topped 544,000, making it the 44th-fastest growing county in the nation.

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UK Firm To Redevelop US Howard Base In Panama

by Mike Godfrey, for LawAndTax-News.com, New York

Private UK developer London and Regional Properties has been awarded the contract to develop a multi-purpose business and commercial centre at the former Howard US Air Force Base in Panama, and will invest US$705 million over the life of the 50-year concession.

The project will cover nearly 3,000 acres and is adjacent both to the Panama Canal and the Base’s airstrip. The ‘Panama Pacifico’ project, as it is known, will create a logistics hub and will include residential, office, and industrial space. The site also connects directly to the Pan-American highway, which connects North and South America.

London and Regional Properties, owned by brothers Ian and Richard Livingstone, fought off 15 other bidders including US Easton Group and Codina Group and Mexican Cabi Control to win the project, in an auction which was conducted by the World Bank’s IFC ’soft-loan’ arm.

Jason Mills, development director at London and Regional, said: “This underlines the attractiveness of Panama as a global investment destination.”

London and Regional partnered with Panamian developers Isaac and Jaime Gilinski in making the bid, and say that they do not need further debt or equity partners for the project.

The Panamian government had long agonized over the fate of this and other ex-US bases and facilities, which were gifted by the Americans to the country when the US pulled out seven years, and are now rapidly decaying, but has finally decided to invite international finance to participate in their development.

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News - Donald Trump heads to Panama - Real Estate TV

On the back of news that Panama’s government is to expand the Panama Canal, it has been revealed that Donald Trump is embarking on a huge investment project in Panama City.

The world-famous property tycoon will be helping to finance an ambitious 65-storey complex in the city, according to Reuters.

The 223,000 square metre Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower will cost in excess of $220 million and it will include 500 luxurious condominiums, 312 hotel units, a marina, a casino and a private beach.

Analysts are suggesting that there will be a huge rise in the number of foreign professionals in Panama City thanks to the expansion of the canal.

It is widely expected that Panama will enjoy something of a real estate boom as a direct result of the work and Mr Trump’s project is likely to benefit hugely from this.

Roger Khafif, president of Panama’s K Group, told Reuters: “Right now we have a booming baby boom market from the US and Canada, with retirees and investors looking for new locations.”

Mr Trump’s tower will overlook the Pacific Ocean and will be among the tallest in Panama, although the forthcoming Ice Tower is expected to be more than 100-floors high.