Progress Report
November 6-12, 2005 // CONSTRUCTION LOG #57
Contact phone numbers
Internet Phone:
New York 315-279-6711 // Toronto 416-907-5758
Costa Rica:
Cell 506-305-3965 // Land 506-282-4142 Ext. 101
NOTE: our land line in CR has changed;
we are now integrated into the compound network.
Story this week is my research trip to the Central
Pacific coast to visit development projects.
Pictures: misc. of all areas under construction.
CONSTRUCTION
Weather: We were plagued by rain most of the week
and on Thursday the electricity was out most of the
day.
Unit 106: Unit 106A will likely be substantially
finished next weekend. 106B will follow shortly there
after. The upper units 106 C and D are in the process
of being boarded. The front portion of the building is
boarded and has the first coat of stucco as well as
moldings. It's beginning to take it's final shape.
We had two issues of "overview" which had to be dealt
with. "Overview" is that term applied to cases where
one party can look into the private space, eg. back
yard, windows, etc, of another home. This is an issue
in N. Am. as well as here. In the case of 106C, the
issue was resolved with a design modification. While
I'm not happy with the resolution, I'll have to live
with it. In the case of 106D, the issue was
resolved but not without some bruising along the way
because of the flexibility of the owners of 107.
Units 121, 122, and 123: Units 122 and 123 continued
to advance but not as fast has I had hoped due to the
rain and power outage. All the gray work has been
completed on the ground floors inside and out. The
structural steel work has been started. Unit 121 has
not yet had the footings laid.
Units 117-120: The focus has been on 106 and 122 and
123 as all those units are sold with commitments made
for finishing them.
Units 101 and 102: No progress.-the shoemaker (me)
and his wife still live in the low rent district.
Electrical System Up grade: Not much progress on
this. Paper work has been submitted to ICE as
required. The new cables have been measured to length
and are awaiting being pulled through the conduits.
The transformer sits until...?????
Marketing: We have received a commitment for 121. We
expect to finish the paperwork this week. We are now
down to 6 units left to sell.
Most of the brochures were distributed; we've had a
few responses.
The e-mail campaign netted a few responses. Certainly
fewer than I had been lead to expect. Regardless of
the numbers, I'm working with them.
Other
Two weeks ago I wrote: "CableTica, the cable TV
company : We're waiting for their response... And we
continue to wait. Guess they are too busy
protesting." The same applies for this week's report.
Next Project: I finally viewed the Escazu property.
It's interesting but at $1.4mil. It's too big for me
since the vendor wants to cash out.
The Beach: I've been so focused on Los Jardines for
the past three years, I really haven't done much
looking around at what others are doing. I decided to
take several days and go to the Manuel Antonio /
Quepos - Jaco area to see what was happening. As of
now, I'm absolutely amazed, confused, and disturbed.
The prices are ridiculous, (beach front land in Jaco
at $600 sq. m / non-beach front condo boxes selling
for $200 sf w/ $400 mo common element fee-20 miles
from the nearest grocery story/bank and several
kilometers from the beach) . In some cases the
development I viewed has major flaws (eg. 4 spaces for
20 houses); In other cases, the quality of product is
way short of the price. Some smaller projects are
being attempted by people who have never built
anything and the product shows it. I am disturbed
because I feel some day, some of the purchasers will
wake up and realize they overpaid and what they bought
really didn't meet their expectations and rightly or
wrongly, this will lead to bad mouthing Costa Rica.
My current feeling is that I really don't understand
what is happening. I can read and hear it all many
times but it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me-in
fact, it makes NO sense to me.
Useful Websites on Costa Rica
http://www.therealcostarica.com/default.html
http://groups.msn.com/CRLeBoard
http://www.arcr.net/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CostaRicaLiving/
http://welovecostarica.com
OUR LIVES
The 4 day trip (Thursday to Sunday afternoon) Lita and
I took with our site superintendent and his wife was a
great experience. They speak no English and we don't
do a great job on Spanish but we were able to
communicate and have a great time. They got a chance
to see things they hadn't seen before and together we
got an opportunity to view what was going on. We made
some contacts which might yield something in the
future...and yes, the roads are awful-huge
potholes, and yes, there are several bridges washed
out with alternates south of Jaco but all are
passable with care and caution. Brian, Lita, Hugo and irreverent Vicka, the pigeon
toed parrot.
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